THE WORKS OF

E. PHILLIPS
OPPENHEIM

MYSTERIOUS MR. SABIN

McKinlay, Stone & Mackenzie
NEW YORK

Copyright, 1905,
By Little, Brown, and Company.

All rights reserved

“The girl’s face shone like a piece of delicate statuary” (page [37]). [Frontispiece.

CONTENTS

MYSTERIOUS MR. SABIN

——◆——

CHAPTER I

A SUPPER PARTY AT THE “MILAN.”

“To all such meetings as these!” cried Densham, lifting his champagne glass from under the soft halo of the rose-shaded electric lights. “Let us drink to them, Wolfenden—Mr. Felix!”

“To all such meetings!” echoed his vis-à-vis, also fingering the delicate stem of his glass. “An excellent toast!”

“To all such meetings as these!” murmured the third man, who made up the little party. “A capital toast indeed!”

They sat at a little round table in the brilliantly-lit supper-room of one of London’s most fashionable restaurants. Around them were the usual throng of well dressed men, of women with bare shoulders and flashing diamonds, of dark-visaged waiters, deft, silent, swift-footed. The pleasant hum of conversation, louder and more unrestrained as the hour grew towards midnight, was varied by the popping of corks and many little trills of feminine laughter. Of discordant sounds there were none. The waiters’ feet fell noiselessly upon the thick carpet, the clatter of plates was a thing unheard of. From the balcony outside came the low, sweet music of a German orchestra played by master hands.

As usual the place was filled. Several late-comers, who had neglected to order their table beforehand, had already, after a disconsolate tour of the room, been led to one of the smaller apartments, or had driven off again to where the lights from the larger but less smart Altoné flashed out upon the smooth, dark waters of the Thames. Only one table was as yet unoccupied, and that was within a yard or two of the three young men who were celebrating a chance meeting in Pall Mall so pleasantly. It was laid for two only, and a magnificent bunch of white roses had, a few minutes before, been brought in and laid in front of one of the places by the director of the rooms himself. A man’s small visiting-card was leaning against a wineglass. The table was evidently reserved by some one of importance, for several late-comers had pointed to it, only to be met by a decided shake of the head on the part of the waiter to whom they had appealed. As time went on, this empty table became the object of some speculation to the three young men.

“Our neighbours,” remarked Wolfenden, “are running it pretty fine. Can you see whose name is upon the card, Densham?”

The man addressed raised an eyeglass to his left eye and leaned forward. Then he shook his head, he was a little too far away.

“No! It is a short name. Seems to begin with S. Probably a son of Israel!”

“His taste in flowers is at any rate irreproachable,” Wolfenden remarked. “I wish they would come. I am in a genial mood, and I do not like to think of any one having to hurry over such an excellent supper.”

“The lady,” Densham suggested, “is probably theatrical, and has to dress after the show. Half-past twelve is a barbarous hour to turn us out. I wonder——”

“Sh-sh!”

The slight exclamation and a meaning frown from Wolfenden checked his speech. He broke off in the middle of his sentence, and looked round. There was the soft swish of silk passing his chair, and the faint suggestion of a delicate and perfectly strange perfume. At last the table was being taken possession of. A girl, in a wonderful white dress, was standing there, leaning over to admire the great bunch of creamy-white blossoms, whilst a waiter respectfully held a chair for her. A few steps behind came her companion, an elderly man who walked with a slight limp, leaning heavily upon a stick. She turned to him and made some remark in French, pointing to the flowers. He smiled, and passing her, stood for a moment leaning slightly upon the back of his chair, waiting, with a courtesy which was obviously instinctive, until she should have seated herself. During the few seconds which elapsed before they were settled in their places he glanced around the room with a smile, slightly cynical, but still good-natured, parting his thin, well-shaped lips. Wolfenden and Densham, who were looking at him with frank curiosity, he glanced at carelessly. The third young man of the party, Felix, was bending low over his plate, and his face was hidden.

The buzz of conversation in their immediate vicinity had been temporarily suspended. Every one who had seen them enter had been interested in these late-comers, and many curious eyes had followed them to their seats. Briefly, the girl was beautiful and the man distinguished. When they had taken their places, however, the hum of conversation recommenced. Densham and Wolfenden leaned over to one another, and their questions were almost simultaneous.

“Who are they?”

“Who is she?”

Alas! neither of them knew; neither of them had the least idea. Felix, Wolfenden’s guest, it seemed useless to ask. He had only just arrived in England, and he was a complete stranger to London. Besides, he did not seem to be interested. He was proceeding calmly with his supper, with his back directly turned upon the new-comers. Beyond one rapid, upward glance at their entrance he seemed almost to have avoided looking at them. Wolfenden thought of this afterwards.

“I see Harcutt in the corner,” he said. “He will know who they are for certain. I shall go and ask him.”

He crossed the room and chatted for a few minutes with a noisy little party in an adjacent recess. Presently he put his question. Alas! not one of them knew! Harcutt, a journalist of some note and a man who prided himself upon knowing absolutely everybody, was as helpless as the rest. To his humiliation he was obliged to confess it.

“I never saw either of them before in my life,” he said. “I cannot imagine who they can be. They are certainly foreigners.”

“Very likely,” Wolfenden agreed quietly. “In fact, I never doubted it. An English girl of that age—she is very young by the bye—would never be so perfectly turned out.”

“What a very horrid thing to say, Lord Wolfenden,” exclaimed the woman on whose chair his hand was resting. “Don’t you know that dressing is altogether a matter of one’s maid? You may rely upon it that that girl has found a treasure!”

“Well, I don’t know,” Wolfenden said, smiling. “Young English girls always seem to me to look so dishevelled in evening dress. Now this girl is dressed with the art of a Frenchwoman of mature years, and yet with the simplicity of a child.”

The woman laid down her lorgnettes and shrugged her shoulders.

“I agree with you,” she said, “that she is probably not English. If she were she would not wear such diamonds at her age.”

“By the bye,” Harcutt remarked with sudden cheerfulness, “we shall be able to find out who the man is when we leave. The table was reserved, so the name will be on the list at the door.”

His friends rose to leave and Harcutt, making his adieux, crossed the room with Wolfenden.

“We may as well have our coffee together,” he said. “I ordered Turkish and I’ve been waiting for it ten minutes. We got here early. Hullo! where’s your other guest?”

Densham was sitting alone. Wolfenden looked at him inquiringly.

“Your friend Felix has gone,” he announced. “Suddenly remembered an engagement with his chief, and begged you to excuse him. Said he’d look you up to-morrow.”

“Well, he’s an odd fellow,” Wolfenden remarked, motioning Harcutt to the vacant place. “His looks certainly belie his name.”

“He’s not exactly a cheerful companion for a supper party,” Densham admitted, “but I like his face. How did you come across him, Wolfenden, and where does he hail from?”

“He’s a junior attaché at the Russian Embassy,” Wolfenden said, stirring his coffee. “Only just been appointed. Charlie Meynell gave him a line of introduction to me; said he was a decent sort, but mopish! I looked him up last week, met him in Pall Mall just as you came along, and asked you both to supper. What liqueurs, Harcutt?”

The conversation drifted into ordinary channels and flowed on steadily. At the same time it was maintained with a certain amount of difficulty. The advent of these two people at the next table had produced an extraordinary effect upon the three men. Harcutt was perhaps the least affected. He was a young man of fortune and natural gifts, who had embraced journalism as a career, and was really in love with his profession. Partly on account of his social position, which was unquestioned, and partly because his tastes tended in that direction, he had become the recognised scribe and chronicle of smart society. His pen was easy and fluent. He was an inimitable maker of short paragraphs. He prided himself upon knowing everybody and all about them. He could have told how much a year Densham, a rising young portrait painter, was making from his profession, and exactly what Wolfenden’s allowance from his father was. A strange face was an annoyance to him; too, a humiliation. He had been piqued that he could not answer the eager questions of his own party as to these two people, and subsequently Wolfenden’s inquiries. The thought that very soon at any rate their name would be known to him was, in a sense, a consolation. The rest would be easy. Until he knew all about them he meant to conceal so far as possible his own interest.

CHAPTER II

A DRAMA OF THE PAVEMENT

The pitch of conversation had risen higher, still mingled with the intermittent popping of corks and the striking of matches. Blue wreaths of cigarette smoke were curling upwards—a delicate feeling of “abandon” was making itself felt amongst the roomful of people. The music grew softer as the babel of talk grew in volume. The whole environment became tinged with a faint but genial voluptuousness. Densham was laughing over the foibles of some mutual acquaintance; Wolfenden leaned back in his chair, smoking a cigarette and sipping his Turkish coffee. His eyes scarcely left for a moment the girl who sat only a few yards away from him, trifling with a certain dainty indifference with the little dishes, which one after the other had been placed before her and removed. He had taken pains to withdraw himself from the discussion in which his friends were interested. He wanted to be quite free to watch her. To him she was certainly the most wonderful creature he had ever seen. In every one of her most trifling actions she seemed possessed of an original and curious grace, even the way she held her silver fork, toyed with her serviette, raised her glass to her lips and set it down again—all these little things she seemed to him to accomplish with a peculiar and wonderful daintiness. Of conversation between her companion and herself there was evidently very little, nor did she appear to expect it. He was enjoying his supper with the moderation and minute care for trifles which denote the epicure, and he only spoke to her between the courses. She, on the other hand, appeared to be eating scarcely anything. At last, however, the waiter set before her a dish in which she was evidently interested. Wolfenden recognised the pink frilled paper and smiled. She was human enough then to care for ices. She bent over it and shrugged her shoulders—turning to the waiter who was hovering near, she asked a question. He bowed and removed the plate. In a moment or two he reappeared with another. This time the paper and its contents were brown. She smiled as she helped herself—such a smile that Wolfenden wondered that the waiter did not lose his head, and hand her pepper and salt instead of gravely filling her glass. She took up her spoon and deliberately tasted the contents of her plate. Then she looked across the table, and spoke the first words in English which he had heard from her lips—

“Coffee ice. So much nicer than strawberry!”

The man nodded back.

“Ices after supper are an abomination,” he said. “They spoil the flavour of your wine, and many other things. But after all, I suppose it is waste of time to tell you so! A woman never understands how to eat until she is fifty.”

She laughed, and deliberately finished the ice. Just as she laid down the spoon, she raised her eyes quietly and encountered Wolfenden’s. He looked away at once with an indifference which he felt to be badly assumed. Did she know, he wondered, that he had been watching her like an owl all the time? He felt hot and uncomfortable—a veritable schoolboy at the thought. He plunged into the conversation between Harcutt and Densham—a conversation which they had been sustaining with an effort. They too were still as interested in their neighbours, although their positions at the table made it difficult for either to observe them closely.

When three men are each thinking intently of something else, it is not easy to maintain an intelligent discussion. Wolfenden, to create a diversion, called for the bill. When he had paid it, and they were ready to depart, Densham looked up with a little burst of candour—

“She’s wonderful!” he exclaimed softly.

“Marvellous!” Wolfenden echoed.

“I wonder who on earth they can possibly be,” Harcutt said almost peevishly. Already he was being robbed of some part of his contemplated satisfaction. It was true that he would probably find the man’s name on the table-list at the door, but he had a sort of presentiment that the girl’s personality would elude him. The question of relationship between the man and the girl puzzled him. He propounded the problem and they discussed it with bated breath. There was no likeness at all! Was there any relationship? It was significant that although Harcutt was a scandalmonger and Wolfenden somewhat of a cynic, they discussed it with the most profound respect. Relationship after all of some sort there must be. What was it? It was Harcutt who alone suggested what to Wolfenden seemed an abominable possibility.

“Scarcely husband and wife, I should think,” he said thoughtfully, “yet one never can tell!”

Involuntarily they all three glanced towards the man. He was well preserved and his little imperial and short grey moustache were trimmed with military precision, yet his hair was almost white, and his age could scarcely be less than sixty. In his way he was quite as interesting as the girl. His eyes, underneath his thick brows, were dark and clear, and his features were strong and delicately shaped. His hands were white and very shapely, the fingers were rather long, and he wore two singularly handsome rings, both set with strange stones. By the side of the table rested the stick upon which he had been leaning during his passage through the room. It was of smooth, dark wood polished like a malacca cane, and set at the top with a curious, green, opalescent stone, as large as a sparrow’s egg. The eyes of the three men had each in turn been arrested by it. In the electric light which fell softly upon the upper part of it, the stone seemed to burn and glow with a peculiar, iridescent radiance. Evidently it was a precious possession, for once when a waiter had offered to remove it to a stand at the other end of the room, the man had stopped him sharply and drawn it a little closer towards him.

Wolfenden lit a fresh cigarette, and gazed thoughtfully into the little cloud of blue smoke.

“Husband and wife,” he repeated slowly. “What an absurd idea! More likely father and daughter!”

“How about the roses?” Harcutt remarked. “A father does not as a rule show such excellent taste in flowers!”

They had finished supper. Suddenly the girl stretched out her left hand and took a glove from the table. Wolfenden smiled triumphantly.

“She has no wedding-ring,” he exclaimed softly.

Then Harcutt, for the first time, made a remark for which he was never altogether forgiven—a remark which both the other men received in chilling silence.

“That may or may not be a matter for congratulation,” he said, twirling his moustache. “One never knows!”

Wolfenden stood up, turning his back upon Harcutt and pointedly ignoring him.

“Let us go, Densham,” he said. “We are almost the last.”

As a matter of fact his movement was made at exactly the right time. They could scarcely have left the room at the same moment as these two people, in whom manifestly they had been taking so great an interest. But by the time they had sent for their coats and hats from the cloak-room, and Harcutt had coolly scrutinised the table-list, they found themselves all together in a little group at the head of the stairs.

Wolfenden, who was a few steps in front, drew back to allow them to pass. The man, leaning upon his stick, laid his hand upon the girl’s sleeve. Then he looked up at the man, and addressed Wolfenden directly.

“You had better precede us, sir,” he said; “my progress is unfortunately somewhat slow.”

Wolfenden drew back courteously.

“We are in no hurry,” he said. “Please go on.”

The man thanked him, and with one hand upon the girl’s shoulder and with the other on his stick commenced to descend. The girl had passed on without even glancing towards them. She had twisted a white lace mantilla around her head, and her features were scarcely visible—only as she passed, Wolfenden received a general impression of rustling white silk and lace and foaming tulle as she gathered her skirts together at the head of the stairs. It seemed to him, too, that the somewhat close atmosphere of the vestibule had become faintly sweet with the delicate fragrance of the white roses which hung by a loop of satin from her wrist.

The three men waited until they had reached the bend of the stairs before they began to descend. Harcutt then leaned forward.

“His name,” he whispered, “is disenchanting. It is Mr. Sabin! Whoever heard of a Mr. Sabin? Yet he looks like a personage!”

At the doors there was some delay. It was raining fast and the departures were a little congested. The three young men still kept in the background. Densham affected to be busy lighting a cigarette, Wolfenden was slowly drawing on his gloves. His place was almost in a line with the girl’s. He could see the diamonds flashing in her fair hair through the dainty tracery of the drooping white lace, and in a moment, through some slight change in her position, he could get a better view of her face than he had been able to obtain even in the supper-room. She was beautiful! There was no doubt about that! But there were many beautiful women in London, whom Wolfenden scarcely pretended to admire. This girl had something better even than supreme beauty. She was anything but a reproduction. She was a new type. She had originality. Her hair was dazzlingly fair; her eyebrows, delicately arched, were high and distinctly dark in colour. Her head was perfectly shaped—the features seemed to combine a delightful piquancy with a somewhat statuesque regularity. Wolfenden, wondering of what she in some manner reminded him, suddenly thought of some old French miniatures, which he had stopped to admire only a day or two before, in a little curio shop near Bond Street. There was a distinct dash of something foreign in her features and carriage. It might have been French, or Austrian—it was most certainly not Anglo-Saxon!

The crush became a little less, they all moved a step or two forward—and Wolfenden, glancing carelessly outside, found his attention immediately arrested. Just as he had been watching the girl, so was a man, who stood on the pavement side by side with the commissionaire, watching her companion. He was tall and thin; apparently dressed in evening clothes, for though his coat was buttoned up to his chin, he wore an opera hat. His hands were thrust into the loose pockets of his overcoat, and his face was mostly in the shadows. Once, however, he followed some motion of Mr. Sabin’s and moved his head a little forward. Wolfenden started and looked at him fixedly. Was it fancy, or was there indeed something clenched in his right hand there, which gleamed like silver—or was it steel—in the momentary flash of a passing carriage-light? Wolfenden was puzzled. There was something, too, which seemed to him vaguely familiar in the man’s figure and person. He was certainly waiting for somebody, and to judge from his expression his mission was no pleasant one. Wolfenden who, through the latter part of the evening, had felt a curious and unwonted sense of excitement stirring his blood, now felt it go tingling through all his veins. He had some subtle prescience that he was on the brink of an adventure. He glanced hurriedly at his two companions; neither of them had noticed this fresh development.

Just then the commissionaire, who knew Wolfenden by sight, turned round and saw him standing there. Stepping back on to the pavement, he called up the brougham, which was waiting a little way down the street.

“Your carriage, my lord,” he said to Wolfenden, touching his cap.

Wolfenden, with ready presence of mind, shook his head.

“I am waiting for a friend,” he said. “Tell my man to pass on a yard or two.”

The man bowed, and the danger of leaving before these two people, in whom his interest now was becoming positively feverish, was averted. As if to enhance it, a singular thing now happened. The interest suddenly became reciprocal. At the sound of Wolfenden’s voice the man with the club foot had distinctly started. He changed his position and, leaning forward, looked eagerly at him. His eyes remained for a moment or two fixed steadily upon him. There was no doubt about the fact, singular in itself though it was. Wolfenden noticed it himself, so did both Densham and Harcutt. But before any remark could pass between them a little coupé brougham had drawn up, and the man and the girl started forward.

Wolfenden followed close behind. The feeling which prompted him to do so was a curious one, but it seemed to him afterwards that he had even at that time a conviction that something unusual was about to happen. The girl stepped lightly across the carpeted way and entered the carriage. Her companion paused in the doorway to hand some silver to the commissionaire, then he too, leaning upon his stick, stepped across the pavement. His foot was already upon the carriage step, when suddenly what Wolfenden had been vaguely anticipating happened. A dark figure sprang from out of the shadows and seized him by the throat; something that glittered like a streak of silver in the electric light flashed upwards. The blow would certainly have fallen but for Wolfenden. He was the only person not wholly unprepared for something of the sort, and he was consequently not paralysed into inaction as were the others. He was so near, too, that a single step forward enabled him to seize the uplifted arm in a grasp of iron. The man who had been attacked was the next to recover himself. Raising his stick he struck at his assailant violently. The blow missed his head, but grazed his temple and fell upon his shoulder. The man, released from Wolfenden’s grasp by his convulsive start, went staggering back into the roadway.

There was a rush then to secure him, but it was too late. Wolfenden, half expecting another attack, had not moved from the carriage door, and the commissionaire, although a powerful man, was not swift. Like a cat the man who had made the attack sprang across the roadway, and into the gardens which fringed the Embankment. The commissionaire and a loiterer followed him. Just then Wolfenden felt a soft touch on his shoulder. The girl had opened the carriage door, and was standing at his side.

“Is any one hurt?” she asked quickly.

“No one,” he answered. “It is all over. The man has run away.”

Mr. Sabin stooped down and brushed away some grey ash from the front of his coat. Then he took a match-box from his ticket-pocket, and re-lit the cigarette which had been crumpled in his fingers. His hand was perfectly steady. The whole affair had scarcely taken thirty seconds.

“It was probably some lunatic,” he remarked, motioning to the girl to resume her place in the carriage. “I am exceedingly obliged to you, sir. Lord Wolfenden, I believe?” he added, raising his hat. “But for your intervention the matter might really have been serious. Permit me to offer you my card. I trust that some day I may have a better opportunity of expressing my thanks. At present you will excuse me if I hurry. I am not of your nation, but I share an antipathy with them—I hate a row!”

He stepped into the carriage with a farewell bow, and it drove off at once. Wolfenden remained looking after it, with his hat in his hand. From the Embankment below came the faint sound of hurrying footsteps.

CHAPTER III

THE WARNING OF FELIX

The three friends stood upon the pavement watching the little brougham until it disappeared round the corner in a flickering glitter of light. It would have been in accordance with precedent if after leaving the restaurant they had gone to some one of their clubs to smoke a cigar and drink whisky and apollinaris, while Harcutt retailed the latest society gossip, and Densham descanted on art, and Wolfenden contributed genial remarks upon things in general. But to-night all three were inclined to depart from precedent. Perhaps the surprising incident which they had just witnessed made anything like normal routine seem unattractive; whatever the reason may have been, the young men were of a sudden not in sympathy with one another. Harcutt murmured some conventional lie about having an engagement, supplemented it with some quite unconvincing statement about pressure of work, and concluded with an obviously disingenuous protest against the tyranny of the profession of journalism, then he sprang with alacrity into a hansom and said goodbye with a good deal less than his usual cordiality. Densham, too, hailed a cab, and leaning over the apron delivered himself of a farewell speech which sounded rather malignant. “You are a lucky beast, Wolfenden,” he growled enviously, adding, with a note of venom in his voice, “but don’t forget it takes more than the first game to win the rubber,” and then he was whirled away, nodding his head and wearing an expression of wisdom deeply tinged with gloom.

Wolfenden was surprised, but not exactly sorry that the first vague expression of hostility had been made by the others.

“Both of them must be confoundedly hard hit,” he murmured to himself; “I never knew Densham turn nasty before.” And to his coachman he said aloud, “You may go home, Dawson. I am going to walk.”

He turned on to the embankment, conscious of a curious sense of exhilaration. He was no blasé cynic; but the uniformly easy life tends to become just a trifle monotonous, and Lord Wolfenden’s somewhat epicurean mind derived actual pleasure from the subtle luxury of a new sensation. What he had said of his friends he could have said with equal truth of himself: he was confoundedly hard hit. For the first time in his life he found the mere memory of a woman thrilling; his whole nature vibrated in response to the appeal she made to him, and he walked along buoyantly under the stars, revelling in the delight of being alive.

Suddenly he stopped abruptly. Huddled up in the corner of a seat was a man with a cloth cap pulled forward screening his face: at that moment Lord Wolfenden was in a mood to be extravagantly generous to any poor applicant for alms, lavishly sympathetic to any tale of distress. But it was not ordinary curiosity that arrested his progress now. He knew almost at the first glance who it was that sat in this dejected attitude, although the opera hat was replaced by the soft cloth cap, and in other details the man’s appearance was altered. It was indeed the Mr. Felix who had supped with him at the “Milan” and subsequently behaved in so astonishing a fashion.

He knew that he was recognised, and sat up, looking steadfastly at Wolfenden, although his lips trembled and his eyes gleamed wildly. Across his temples a bright red mark was scored.

Lord Wolfenden broke the silence.

“You’re a nice sort of fellow to ask out to supper! What in the name of all that’s wonderful were you trying to do?”

“I should have thought it was sufficiently obvious,” the man replied bitterly. “I tried to kill him, and I failed. Well, why don’t you call the police? I am quite ready. I shall not run again.”

Wolfenden hesitated, and then sat down by the side of this surprising individual.

“The man you went for didn’t seem to care, so I don’t see why I should. But why do you want to kill him?”

“To keep a vow,” the other answered; “how and why made I will not tell you.”

“How did you escape?” Wolfenden asked abruptly.

“Probably because I didn’t care whether I escaped or not,” Felix replied, with a short, bitter laugh. “I stood behind some shrubs just inside the garden, and watched the hunt go by. Then I came out here and sat down.”

“It all sounds very simple,” said Wolfenden, a trifle sarcastically. “May I ask what you are going to do next?”

Felix’s face so clearly intimated that he might not ask anything of the kind, or that if he did his curiosity would not be satisfied, that Wolfenden felt compelled to make some apology.

“Forgive me if I seem inquisitive, but I find the situation a little unusual. You were my guest, you see, and had it not been for my chance invitation you might not have met that man at all. Then again, had it not been for my interference he would have been dead now and you would have been in a fair way to be hanged.”

Felix evinced no sign of gratitude for Wolfenden’s intervention. Instead he said intensely,

“Oh, you fool! you fool!”

“Well, really,” Wolfenden protested, “I don’t see why——” But Felix interrupted him.

“Yes, you are a fool,” he repeated, “because you saved his life. He is an old man now. I wonder how many there have been in the course of his long life who desired to kill him? But no one—not one solitary human being—has ever befriended him or come to his rescue in time of danger without living to be sorry for it. And so it will be with you. You will live to be sorry for what you have done to-night; you will live to think it would have been far better for him to fall by my hand than for yourself to suffer at his. And you will wish passionately that you had let him die. Before heaven, Wolfenden, I swear that that is true.”

The man was so much in earnest, his passion was so quietly intense, that Wolfenden against his will was more than half convinced. He was silent. He suddenly felt cold, and the buoyant elation of mind in which he had started homewards vanished, leaving him anxious and heavy, perhaps just a little afraid.

“I did what any man would do for any one else,” he said, almost apologetically. “It was instinctive. As a matter of fact, that particular man is a perfect stranger to me. I have never seen him before and it is quite possible that I shall never see him again.”

Felix turned quickly towards him.

“If you believe in prayer,” he said, “go down on your knees where you are and pray as you have never prayed for anything before that you may not see him again. There has never been a man or a woman yet who has not been the worse for knowing him. He is like the pestilence that walketh in the darkness, poisoning every one that is in the way of his horrible infection.”

Wolfenden pulled himself together. There was no doubt about his companion’s earnestness, but it was the earnestness of an unbalanced mind. Language so exaggerated as his was out of keeping with the times and the place.

“Tell me some more about him,” he suggested. “Who is he?”

“I won’t tell you,” Felix answered, obstinately.

“Well, then, who is the lady?”

“I don’t know. It is quite enough for me to know that she is his companion for the moment.”

“You do not intend to be communicative, I can see,” said Wolfenden, after a brief pause, “but I wish I could persuade you to tell me why you attempted his life to-night.”

“There was the opportunity,” said Felix, as if that in itself were sufficient explanation. Then he smiled enigmatically. “There are at least three distinct and separate reasons why I should take his life,—all of them good. Three, I mean, why I should do it. But I have not been his only victim. There are plenty of others who have a heavy reckoning against him, and he knows what it is to carry his life in his hand. But he bears a charmed existence. Did you see his stick?”

“Yes,” said Wolfenden, “I did. It had a peculiar stone in the handle; in the electric light it looked like a huge green opal.”

Felix assented moodily.

“That is it. He struck me with a stick. He would not part with it for anything. It was given him by some Indian fakir, and it is said that while he carries it he is proof against attack.”

“Who says so?” Wolfenden inquired.

“Never mind,” said Felix. “It’s enough that it is said.” He relapsed into silence, and when he next spoke his manner was different. His excited vehemence had gone and there was nothing in his voice or demeanour inconsistent with normal sanity. Yet his words were no less charged with deep intention. “I do not know much about you, Lord Wolfenden,” he said; “but I beg you to take the advice I am offering you. No one ever gave you better in your life. Avoid that man as you would avoid the plague. Go away before he looks you up to thank you for what you did. Go abroad, anywhere; the farther the better; and stay away for ever, if that is the only means of escaping his friendship or even his acquaintance.”

Lord Wolfenden shook his head.

“I’m a very ordinary, matter of fact Englishman,” he said, “leading a very ordinary, matter of fact life, and you must forgive me if I consider such a sweeping condemnation a little extravagant and fantastic. I have no particular enemies on my conscience, I am implicated in no conspiracy, and I am, in short, an individual of very little importance. Consequently I have nothing to fear from anybody and am afraid of nobody. This man cannot have anything to gain by injuring me. I believe you said you did not know the lady?”

“The lady?” Felix repeated. “No, I do not know her, nor anything of her beyond the fact that she is with him for the time being. That is quite sufficient for me.”

Wolfenden got up.

“Thanks,” he said lazily. “I only asked you for facts. As for your suggestion—you will be well advised not to repeat it.”

“Oh!” exclaimed Felix, scornfully, “how blind and pig-headed you English people are! I have told you something of the man’s reputation. What can hers be, do you suppose, if she will sup alone with him in a public restaurant?”

“Good-night,” said Wolfenden. “I will not listen to another word.”

Felix rose to his feet and laid his hand upon Lord Wolfenden’s arm.

“Lord Wolfenden,” he said, “you are a very decent fellow: do try to believe that I am only speaking for your good. That girl——”

Wolfenden shook him off.

“If you allude to that young lady, either directly or indirectly,” he said very calmly, “I shall throw you into the river.”

Felix shrugged his shoulders.

“At least remember that I warned you,” was all he ventured to say as Lord Wolfenden strode away.

Leaving the embankment Wolfenden walked quickly to Half Moon Street, where his chambers were. His servant let him in and took his coat. There was an anxious expression upon his usually passive face and he appeared to be rather at a loss for words in which to communicate his news. At last he got it out, accompanying the question with a nervous and deprecating cough.

“I beg your pardon, my lord, but were you expecting a young lady?”

“A what, Selby?” Wolfenden exclaimed, looking at him in amazement.

“A lady, my lord: a young lady.”

“Of course not,” said Wolfenden, with a frown. “What on earth do you mean?”

Selby gathered courage.

“A young lady called here about an hour ago, and asked for you. Johnson informed her that you might be home shortly, and she said she would wait. Johnson, perhaps imprudently, admitted her, and she is in the study, my lord.”

“A young lady in my study at this time of night!” Wolfenden exclaimed, incredulously. “Who is she, and what is she, and why has she come at all? Have you gone mad, Selby?”

“Then you were not expecting her?” the man said, anxiously. “She gave no name, but she assured Johnson that you did.”

“You are a couple of idiots,” Wolfenden said angrily. “Of course I wasn’t expecting her. Surely both you and Johnson have been in my service long enough to know me better than that.”

“I am exceedingly sorry, my lord,” the man said abjectly. “But the young lady’s appearance misled us both. If you will allow me to say so, my lord, I am quite sure that she is a lady. No doubt there is some mistake; but when you see her I think you will exonerate Johnson and me from——”

His master cut his protestations short.

“Wait where you are until I ring,” he said. “It never entered my head that you could be such an incredible idiot.”

He strode into the study, closing the door behind him, and Selby obediently waited for the bell. But a long time passed before the summons came.

CHAPTER IV

AT THE RUSSIAN AMBASSADOR’S

The brougham containing the man who had figured in the “Milan” table list as Mr. Sabin, and his companion, turned into the Strand and proceeded westwards. Close behind it came Harcutt’s private cab—only a few yards away followed Densham’s hansom. The procession continued in the same order, skirting Trafalgar Square and along Pall Mall.

Each in a different manner, the three men were perhaps equally interested in these people. Geoffrey Densham was attracted as an artist by the extreme and rare beauty of the girl. Wolfenden’s interest was at once more sentimental and more personal. Harcutt’s arose partly out of curiosity, partly from innate love of adventure. Both Densham and Harcutt were exceedingly interested as to their probable destination. From it they would be able to gather some idea as to the status and social position of Mr. Sabin and his companion. Both were perhaps a little surprised when the brougham, which had been making its way into the heart of fashionable London, turned into Belgrave Square and pulled up before a great, porticoed house, brilliantly lit, and with a crimson drugget and covered way stretched out across the pavement. Harcutt sprang out first, just in time to see the two pass through the opened doorway, the man leaning heavily upon his stick, the girl, with her daintily gloved fingers just resting upon his coat-sleeve, walking with that uncommon and graceful self-possession which had so attracted Densham during her passage through the supper-room at the “Milan” a short while ago.

Harcutt looked after them, watching them disappear with a frown upon his forehead.

“Rather a sell, isn’t it?” said a quiet voice in his ear.

He turned abruptly round. Densham was standing upon the pavement by his side.

“Great Scott!” he exclaimed testily. “What are you doing here?”

Densham threw away his cigarette and laughed.

“I might return the question, I suppose,” he remarked. “We both followed the young lady and her imaginary papa! We were both anxious to find out where they lived—and we are both sold!”

“Very badly sold,” Harcutt admitted. “What do you propose to do now? We can’t wait outside here for an hour or two!”

Densham hesitated.

“No, we can’t do that,” he said. “Have you any plan?”

Harcutt shook his head.

“Can’t say that I have.”

They were both silent for a moment. Densham was smiling softly to himself. Watching him, Harcutt became quite assured that he had decided what to do.

“Let us consider the matter together,” he suggested, diplomatically. “We ought to be able to hit upon something.”

Densham shook his head doubtfully.

“No,” he said; “I don’t think that we can run this thing in double harness. You see our interests are materially opposed.”

Harcutt did not see it in the same light.

“Pooh! We can travel together by the same road,” he protested. “The time to part company has not come yet. Wolfenden has got a bit ahead of us to-night. After all, though, you and I may pull level, if we help one another. You have a plan, I can see! What is it?”

Densham was silent for a moment.

“You know whose house this is?” he asked.

Harcutt nodded.

“Of course! It’s the Russian Ambassador’s!”

Densham drew a square card from his pocket, and held it out under the gas-light. From it, it appeared that the Princess Lobenski desired the honour of his company at any time that evening between twelve and two.

“A card for to-night, by Jove!” Harcutt exclaimed.

Densham nodded, and replaced it in his pocket.

“You see, Harcutt,” he said, “I am bound to take an advantage over you! I only got this card by an accident, and I certainly do not know the Princess well enough to present you. I shall be compelled to leave you here! All that I can promise is, that if I discover anything interesting I will let you know about it to-morrow. Good-night!”

Harcutt watched him disappear through the open doors, and then walked a little way along the pavement, swearing softly to himself. His first idea was to wait about until they came out, and then follow them again. By that means he would at least be sure of their address. He would have gained something for his time and trouble. He lit a cigarette, and walked slowly to the corner of the street. Then he turned back and retraced his steps. As he neared the crimson strip of drugget, one of the servants drew respectfully aside, as though expecting him to enter. The man’s action was like an inspiration to him. He glanced down the vista of covered roof. A crowd of people were making their way up the broad staircase, and amongst them Densham. After all, why not? He laughed softly to himself and hesitated no longer. He threw away his cigarette and walked boldly in. He was doing a thing for which he well knew that he deserved to be kicked. At the same time, he had made up his mind to go through with it, and he was not the man to fail through nervousness or want of savoir faire.

At the cloak-room the multitude of men inspired him with new confidence. There were some, a very fair sprinkling, whom he knew, and who greeted him indifferently, without appearing in any way to regard his presence as a thing out of the common. He walked up the staircase, one of a little group; but as they passed through the ante-room to where in the distance Prince and Princess Lobenski were standing to receive their guests, Harcutt adroitly disengaged himself—he affected to pause for a moment or two to speak to an acquaintance. When he was left alone, he turned sharp to the right and entered the main dancing-salon.

He was quite safe now, and his spirits began to rise. Yonder was Densham, looking very bored, dancing with a girl in yellow. So far at least he had gained no advantage. He looked everywhere in vain, however, for a man with a club foot and the girl in white and diamonds. They must be in one of the inner rooms. He began to make a little tour.

Two of the ante-chambers he explored without result. In the third, two men were standing near the entrance, talking. Harcutt almost held his breath as he came to an abrupt stop within a yard or two of them. One was the man for whom he had been looking, the other—Harcutt seemed to find his face perfectly familiar, but for the moment he could not identify him. He was tall, with white hair and moustaches. His coat was covered with foreign orders, and he wore English court dress. His hands were clasped behind his back; he was talking in a low, clear tone, stooping a little, and with eyes steadfastly fixed upon his companion. Mr. Sabin was leaning a little forward, with both hands resting upon his stick. Harcutt was struck at once with the singular immobility of his face. He did not appear either interested or amused or acquiescent. He was simply listening. A few words from the other man came to Harcutt’s ears, as he lingered there on the other side of the curtain.

“If it were money—a question of monetary recompense—the secret service purse of my country opens easily, and it is well filled. If it were anything less simple, the proposal could but be made. I am taking the thing, you understand, at your own computation of its worth! I am taking it for granted that it carries with it the power you claim for it. Assuming these things, I am prepared to treat with you. I am going on leave very shortly, and I could myself conduct the negotiations.”

Harcutt would have moved away, but he was absolutely powerless. Naturally, and from his journalistic instincts, he was one of the most curious of men. He had recognised the speaker. The interview was pregnant with possibilities. Who was this Mr. Sabin, that so great a man should talk with him so earnestly? He was looking up now, he was going to speak. What was he going to say? Harcutt held his breath. The idea of moving away never occurred to him now.

“Yet,” Mr. Sabin said slowly, “your country should be a low bidder. The importance of such a thing to you must be less than to France, less than to her great ally. Your relations here are close and friendly. Nature and destiny seemed to have made you allies. As yet there has been no rift—no sign of a rift.”

“You are right,” the other man answered slowly; “and yet who can tell what lies before us? In less than a dozen years the face of all Europe may be changed. The policy of a great nation is, to all appearance, a steadfast thing. On the face of it, it continues the same, age after age. Yet if a change is to come, it comes from within. It develops slowly. It grows from within, outwards, very slowly, like a secret thing. Do you follow me?”

“I think—perhaps I do,” Mr. Sabin admitted deliberately.

The Ambassador’s voice dropped almost to a whisper, and but for its singularly penetrating quality Harcutt would have heard no more. As it was, he had almost to hold his breath, and all his nerves quivered with the tension of listening.

“Even the Press is deceived. The inspired organs purposely mislead. Outside to all the world there seems to be nothing brewing; yet, when the storm bursts, one sees that it has been long in gathering—that years of careful study and thought have been given to that hidden triumph of diplomacy. All has been locked in the breasts of a few. The thing is full-fledged when it is hatched upon the world. It has grown strong in darkness. You understand me?”

“Yes; I think that I understand you,” Mr. Sabin said, his piercing eyes raised now from the ground and fixed upon the other man’s face. “You have given me food for serious thought. I shall do nothing further till I have talked with you again.”

Harcutt suddenly and swiftly withdrew. He had stayed as long as he dared. At any moment his presence might have been detected, and he would have been involved in a situation which even the nerve and effrontery acquired during the practice of his profession could not have rendered endurable. He found a seat in an adjoining room, and sat quite still, thinking. His brain was in a whirl. He had almost forgotten the special object of his quest. He felt like a conspirator. The fascination of the unknown was upon him. Their first instinct concerning these people had been a true one. They were indeed no ordinary people. He must follow them up—he must know more about them. Once more he thought over what he had heard. It was mysterious, but it was interesting. It might mean anything. The man with Mr. Sabin he had recognised the moment he spoke. It was Baron von Knigenstein, the German Ambassador. Those were strange words of his. He pondered them over again. The journalistic fever was upon him. He was no longer in love. He had overheard a few words of a discussion of tremendous import. If only he could get the key to it! If only he could follow this thing through, then farewell to society paragraphing and playing at journalism. His reputation would be made for ever!

He rose, and finding his way to the refreshment-room, drank off a glass of champagne. Then he walked back to the main salon. Standing with his back to the wall, and half-hidden by a tall palm tree, was Densham. He was alone. His arms were folded, and he was looking out upon the dancers with a gloomy frown. Harcutt stepped softly up to him.

“Well, how are you getting on, old chap?” he whispered in his ear.

Densham started, and looked at Harcutt in blank surprise.

“Why, how the—excuse me, how on earth did you get in?” he exclaimed.

Harcutt smiled in a mysterious manner.

“Oh! we journalists are trained to overcome small difficulties,” he said airily. “It wasn’t a very hard task. The Morning is a pretty good passport. Getting in was easy enough. Where is—she?”

Densham moved his head in the direction of the broad space at the head of the stairs, where the Ambassador and his wife had received their guests.

“She is under the special wing of the Princess. She is up at that end of the room somewhere with a lot of old frumps.”

“Have you asked for an introduction?”

Densham nodded.

“Yes, I asked young Lobenski. It is no good. He does not know who she is; but she does not dance, and is not allowed to make acquaintances. That is what it comes to, anyway. It was not a personal matter at all. Lobenski did not even mention my name to his mother. He simply said a friend. The Princess replied that she was very sorry, but there was some difficulty. The young lady’s guardian did not wish her to make acquaintances for the present.”

“Her guardian! He’s not her father, then?”

“No! It was either her guardian or her uncle! I am not sure which. By Jove! There they go! They’re off.”

They both hurried to the cloak-room for their coats, and reached the street in time to see the people in whom they were so interested coming down the stairs towards them. In the glare of the electric light, the girl’s pale, upraised face shone like a piece of delicate statuary. To Densham, the artist, she was irresistible. He drew Harcutt right back amongst the shadows.

“She is the most beautiful woman I have ever seen in my life,” he said deliberately. “Titian never conceived anything more exquisite. She is a woman to paint and to worship!”

“What are you going to do now?” Harcutt asked drily. “You can rave about her in your studio, if you like.”

“I am going to find out where she lives, if I have to follow her home on foot! It will be something to know that.”

“Two of us,” Harcutt protested. “It is too obvious.”

“I can’t help that,” Densham replied. “I do not sleep until I have found out.”

Harcutt looked dubious.

“Look here,” he said, “we need not both go! I will leave it to you on one condition.”

“Well?”

“You must let me know to-morrow what you discover.”

Densham hesitated.

“Agreed,” he decided. “There they go! Good-night. I will call at your rooms, or send a note, to-morrow.”

Densham jumped into his cab and drove away. Harcutt looked after them thoughtfully.

“The girl is very lovely,” he said to himself, as he stood on the pavement waiting for his carriage; “but I do not think that she is for you, Densham, or for me! On the whole, I am more interested in the man!”

CHAPTER V

THE DILEMMA OF WOLFENDEN

Wolfenden was evidently absolutely unprepared to see the girl whom he found occupying his own particular easy chair in his study. The light was only a dim one, and as she did not move or turn round at his entrance he did not recognise her until he was standing on the hearthrug by her side. Then he started with a little exclamation.

“Miss Merton! Why, what on earth——”

He stopped in the middle of his question and looked intently at her. Her head was thrown back amongst the cushions of the chair, and she was fast asleep. Her hat was a little crushed and a little curl of fair hair had escaped and was hanging down over her forehead. There were undoubtedly tear stains upon her pretty face. Her plain, black jacket was half undone, and the gloves which she had taken off lay in her lap. Wolfenden’s anger subsided at once. No wonder Selby had been perplexed. But Selby’s perplexity was nothing to his own.

She woke up suddenly and saw him standing there, traces of his amazement still lingering on his face. She looked at him, half-frightened, half-wistfully. The colour came and went in her cheeks—her eyes grew soft with tears. He felt himself a brute. Surely it was not possible that she could be acting! He spoke to her more kindly than he had intended.

“What on earth has brought you up to town—and here—at this time of night? Is anything wrong at Deringham?”

She sat up in the chair and looked at him with quivering lips.

“N—no, nothing particular; only I have left.”

“You have left!”

“Yes; I have been turned away,” she added, piteously.

He looked at her blankly.

“Turned away! Why, what for? Do you mean to say that you have left for good?”

She nodded, and commenced to dry her eyes with a little lace handkerchief.

“Yes—your mother—Lady Deringham has been very horrid—as though the silly papers were of any use to me or any one else in the world! I have not copied them. I am not deceitful! It is all an excuse to get rid of me because of—of you.”

She looked up at him and suddenly dropped her eyes. Wolfenden began to see some glimmerings of light. He was still, however, bewildered.

“Look here,” he said kindly, “why you are here I cannot for the life of me imagine, but you had better just tell me all about it.”

She rose up suddenly and caught her gloves from the table.

“I think I will go away,” she said. “I was very stupid to come; please forget it and—— Goodbye.”

He caught her by the wrist as she passed.

“Nonsense,” he exclaimed, “you mustn’t go like this.”

She looked steadfastly away from him and tried to withdraw her arm.

“You are angry with me for coming,” she said. “I am very, very sorry; I will go away. Please don’t stop me.”

He held her wrist firmly.

“Miss Merton!”

“Miss Merton!” She repeated his words reproachfully, lifting her eyes suddenly to his, that he might see the tears gathering there. Wolfenden began to feel exceedingly uncomfortable.

“Well, Blanche, then,” he said slowly. “Is that better?”

She answered nothing, but looked at him again. Her hand remained in his. She suffered him to lead her back to the chair.

“It’s all nonsense your going away, you know,” he said a little awkwardly. “You can’t wonder that I am surprised. Perhaps you don’t know that it is a little late—after midnight, in fact. Where should you go to if you ran away like that? Do you know any one in London?”

“I—don’t think so,” she admitted.

“Well, do be reasonable then. First of all tell me all about it.”

She nodded, and began at once, now and then lifting her eyes to his, mostly gazing fixedly at the gloves which she was smoothing carefully out upon her knee.

“I think,” she said, “that Lord Deringham is not so well. What he has been writing has become more and more incoherent, and it has been very difficult to copy it at all. I have done my best but he has never seemed satisfied; and he has taken to watch me in an odd sort of way, just as though I was doing something wrong all the time. You know he fancies that the work he is putting together is of immense importance. Of course I don’t know that it isn’t. All I do know is that it sounds and reads like absolute rubbish, and it’s awfully difficult to copy. He writes very quickly and uses all manner of abbreviations, and if I make a single mistake in typing it he gets horribly cross.”

Wolfenden laughed softly.

“Poor little girl! Go on.”

She smiled too, and continued with less constraint in her tone.

“I didn’t really mind that so much, as of course I have been getting a lot of money for the work, and one can’t have everything. But just lately he seems to have got the idea that I have been making two copies of this rubbish and keeping one back. He has kept on coming into the room unexpectedly, and has sat for hours watching me in a most unpleasant manner. I have not been allowed to leave the house, and all my letters have been looked over; it has been perfectly horrid.”

“I am very sorry,” Wolfenden said. “Of course you knew though that it was going to be rather difficult to please my father, didn’t you? The doctors differ a little as to his precise mental condition, but we are all aware that he is at any rate a trifle peculiar.”

She smiled a little bitterly.

“Oh! I am not complaining,” she said. “I should have stood it somehow for the sake of the money; but I haven’t told you everything yet. The worst part, so far as I am concerned, is to come.”

“I am very sorry,” he said; “please go on.”

“This morning your father came very early into the study and found a sheet of carbon paper on my desk and two copies of one page of the work I was doing. As a matter of fact I had never used it before, but I wanted to try it for practice. There was no harm in it—I should have destroyed the second sheet in a minute or two, and in any case it was so badly done that it was absolutely worthless. But directly Lord Deringham saw it he went quite white, and I thought he was going to have a fit. I can’t tell you all he said. He was brutal. The end of it was that my boxes were all turned out and my desk and everything belonging to me searched as though I were a house-maid suspected of theft, and all the time I was kept locked up. When they had finished, I was told to put my hat on and go. I—I had nowhere to go to, for Muriel—you remember I told you about my sister—went to America last week. I hadn’t the least idea what to do—and so—I—you were the only person who had ever been kind to me,” she concluded, suddenly leaning over towards him, a little sob in her throat, and her eyes swimming with tears.

There are certain situations in life when an honest man is at an obvious disadvantage. Wolfenden felt awkward and desperately ill at ease. He evaded the embrace which her movement and eyes had palpably invited, and compromised matters by taking her hands and holding them tightly in his. Even then he felt far from comfortable.

“But my mother,” he exclaimed. “Lady Deringham surely took your part?”

She shook her head vigorously.

“Lady Deringham did nothing of the sort,” she replied. “Do you remember last time when you were down you took me for a walk once or twice and you talked to me in the evenings, and—but perhaps you have forgotten. Have you?”

She was looking at him so eagerly that there was only one answer possible for him. He hastened to make it. There was a certain lack of enthusiasm in his avowal, however, which brought a look of reproach into her face. She sighed and looked away into the fire.

“Well,” she continued, “Lady Deringham has never been the same since then to me. It didn’t matter while you were there, but after you left it was very wretched. I wrote to you, but you never answered my letter.”

He was very well aware of it. He had never asked her to write, and her note had seemed to him a trifle too ingenuous. He had never meant to answer it.

“I so seldom write letters,” he said. “I thought, too, that it must have been your fancy. My mother is generally considered a very good-hearted woman.”

She laughed bitterly.

“Oh, one does not fancy those things,” she said. “Lady Deringham has been coldly civil to me ever since, and nothing more. This morning she seemed absolutely pleased to have an excuse for sending me away. She knows quite well, of course, that Lord Deringham is—not himself; but she took everything he said for gospel, and turned me out of the house. There, now you know everything. Perhaps after all it was idiotic to come to you. Well, I’m only a girl, and girls are idiots; I haven’t a friend in the world, and if I were alone I should die of loneliness in a week. You won’t send me away? You are not angry with me?”

She made a movement towards him, but he held her hands tightly. For the first time he began to see his way before him. A certain ingenuousness in her speech and in that little half-forgotten note—an ingenuousness, by the bye, of which he had some doubts—was his salvation. He would accept it as absolutely genuine. She was a child who had come to him, because he had been kind to her.

“Of course I am not angry with you,” he said, quite emphatically. “I am very glad indeed that you came. It is only right that I should help you when my people seem to have treated you so wretchedly. Let me think for a moment.”

She watched him very anxiously, and moved a little closer to him.

“Tell me,” she murmured, “what are you thinking about?”

“I have it,” he answered, standing suddenly up and touching the bell. “It is an excellent idea.”

“What is it?” she asked quickly.

He did not appear to hear her question. Selby was standing upon the threshold. Wolfenden spoke to him.

“Selby, are your wife’s rooms still vacant?”

Selby believed that they were.

“That’s all right then. Put on your hat and coat at once. I want you to take this young lady round there.”

“Very good, my lord.”

“Her luggage has been lost and may not arrive until to-morrow. Be sure you tell Mrs. Selby to do all in her power to make things comfortable.”

The girl had gone very pale. Wolfenden, watching her closely, was surprised at her expression.

“I think,” he said, “that you will find Mrs. Selby a very decent sort of a person. If I may, I will come and see you to-morrow, and you shall tell me how I can help you. I am very glad indeed that you came to me.”

She shot a single glance at him, partly of anger, partly reproach.

“You are very, very kind,” she said slowly, “and very considerate,” she added, after a moment’s pause. “I shall not forget it.”

She looked him then straight in the eyes. He was more glad than he would have liked to confess even to himself to hear Selby’s knock at the door.

“You have nothing to thank me for yet at any rate,” he said, taking her hand. “I shall be only too glad if you will let me be of service to you.”

He led her out to the carriage and watched it drive away, with Selby on the box seat. Her last glance, as she leaned back amongst the cushions, was a tender one; her lips were quivering, and her little fingers more than returned his pressure. But Wolfenden walked back to his study with all the pleasurable feelings of a man who has extricated himself with tact from an awkward situation.

“The frankness,” he remarked to himself, as he lit a pipe and stretched himself out for a final smoke, “was a trifle, just a trifle, overdone. She gave the whole show away with that last glance. I should like very much to know what it all means.”

CHAPTER VI

A COMPACT OF THREE

Wolfenden, for an idler, was a young man of fairly precise habits. By ten o’clock next morning he had breakfasted, and before eleven he was riding in the Park. Perhaps he had some faint hope of seeing there something of the two people in whom he was now greatly interested. If so he was certainly disappointed. He looked with a new curiosity into the faces of the girls who galloped past him, and he was careful even to take particular notice of the few promenaders. But he did not see anything of Mr. Sabin or his companion.

At twelve o’clock he returned to his rooms and exchanged his riding-clothes for the ordinary garb of the West End. He even looked on his hall-table as he passed out again, to see if there were any note or card for him.

“He could scarcely look me up just yet, at any rate,” he reflected, as he walked slowly along Piccadilly, “for he did not even ask me for my address. He took the whole thing so coolly that perhaps he does not mean even to call.”

Nevertheless, he looked in the rack at his club to see if there was anything against his name, and tore into pieces the few unimportant notes he found there, with an impatience which they scarcely deserved. Of the few acquaintances whom he met there, he inquired casually whether they knew anything of a man named “Sabin.” No one seemed to have heard the name before. He even consulted a directory in the hall, but without success. At one o’clock, in a fit of restlessness, he went out, and taking a hansom drove over to Westminster, to Harcutt’s rooms. Harcutt was in, and with him Densham. At Wolfenden’s entrance the three men looked at one another, and there was a simultaneous laugh.

“Here comes the hero,” Densham remarked. “He will be able to tell us everything.”

“I came to gather information, not to impart it,” Wolfenden answered, selecting a cigarette, and taking an easy chair. “I know precisely as much as I knew last night.”

“Mr. Sabin has not been to pour out his gratitude yet, then?” Densham asked.

Wolfenden shook his head.

“Not yet. On the whole, I am inclined to think that he will not come at all. He doubtless considers that he has done all that is necessary in the way of thanks. He did not even ask for my card, and giving me his was only a matter of form, for there was no address upon it.”

“But he knew your name,” Harcutt reminded him. “I noticed that.”

“Yes. I suppose he could find me if he wished to,” Wolfenden admitted. “If he had been very keen about it, though, I should think he would have said something more. His one idea seemed to be to get away before there was a row.”

“I do not think,” Harcutt said, “that you will find him overburdened with gratitude. He does not seem that sort of man.”

“I do not want any gratitude from him,” Wolfenden answered, deliberately. “So far as the man himself is concerned I should rather prefer never to see him again. By the bye, did either of you fellows follow them home last night?”

Harcutt and Densham exchanged quick glances. Wolfenden had asked his question quietly, but it was evidently what he had come to know.

“Yes,” Harcutt said, “we both did. They are evidently people of some consequence. They went first to the house of the Russian Ambassador, Prince Lobenski.”

Wolfenden swore to himself softly. He could have been there. He made a mental note to leave a card at the Embassy that afternoon.

“And afterwards?”

“Afterwards they drove to a house in Chilton Gardens, Kensington, where they remained.”

“The presumption being, then——” Wolfenden began.

“That they live there,” Harcutt put in. “In fact, I may say that we ascertained that definitely. The man’s name is ‘Sabin,’ and the girl is reputed to be his niece. Now you know as much as we do. The relationship, however, is little more than a surmise.”

“Did either of you go to the reception?” Wolfenden asked.

“We both did,” Harcutt answered.

Wolfenden raised his eyebrows.

“You were there! Then why didn’t you make their acquaintance?”

Densham laughed shortly.

“I asked for an introduction to the girl,” he said, “and was politely declined. She was under the special charge of the Princess, and was presented to no one.”

“And Mr. Sabin?” Wolfenden asked.

“He was talking all the time to Baron von Knigenstein, the German Ambassador. They did not stay long.”

Wolfenden smiled.

“It seems to me,” he said, “that you had an excellent opportunity and let it go.”

Harcutt threw his cigarette into the fire with an impatient gesture.

“You may think so,” he said. “All I can say is, that if you had been there yourself, you could have done no more. At any rate, we have no particular difficulty now in finding out who this mysterious Mr. Sabin and the girl are. We may assume that there is a relationship,” he added, “or they would scarcely have been at the Embassy, where, as a rule, the guests make up in respectability what they lack in brilliancy.”

“As to the relationship,” Wolfenden said, “I am quite prepared to take that for granted. I, for one, never doubted it.”

“That,” Harcutt remarked, “is because you are young, and a little quixotic. When you have lived as long as I have you will doubt everything. You will take nothing for granted unless you desire to live for ever amongst the ruins of your shattered enthusiasms. If you are wise, you will always assume that your swans are geese until you have proved them to be swans.”

“That is very cheap cynicism,” Wolfenden remarked equably. “I am surprised at you, Harcutt. I thought that you were more in touch with the times. Don’t you know that to-day nobody is cynical except schoolboys and dyspeptics? Pessimism went out with sack overcoats. Your remarks remind me of the morning odour of patchouli and stale smoke in a cheap Quartier Latin dancing-room. To be in the fashion of to-day, you must cultivate a gentle, almost arcadian enthusiasm, you must wear rose-coloured spectacles and pretend that you like them. Didn’t you hear what Flaskett said last week? There is an epidemic of morality in the air. We are all going to be very good.”

“Some of us,” Densham remarked, “are going to be very uncomfortable, then.”

“Great changes always bring small discomforts,” Wolfenden rejoined. “But after all I didn’t come here to talk nonsense. I came to ask you both something. I want to know whether you fellows are bent upon seeing this thing through?”

Densham and Harcutt exchanged glances. There was a moment’s silence. Densham became spokesman.

“So far as finding out who they are and all about them,” he said, “I shall not rest until I have done it.”

“And you, Harcutt?”

Harcutt nodded gravely.

“I am with Densham,” he said. “At the same time I may as well tell you that I am quite as much, if not more, interested in the man than in the girl. The girl is beautiful, and of course I admire her, as every one must. But that is all. The man appeals to my journalistic instincts. There is copy in him. I am convinced that he is a personage. You may, in fact, regard me, both of you, as an ally rather than as a rival.”

“If you had your choice, then, of an hour’s conversation with either of them——” Wolfenden began.

“I should choose the man without a second’s hesitation,” Harcutt declared. “The girl is lovely enough, I admit. I do not wonder at you fellows—Densham, who is a worshipper of beauty; you, Wolfenden, who are an idler—being struck with her! But as regards myself it is different. The man appeals to my professional instincts in very much the same way as the girl appeals to the artistic sense in Densham. He is a conundrum which I have set myself to solve.”

Wolfenden rose to his feet.

“Look here, you fellows,” he said, “I have a proposition to make. We are all three in the same boat. Shall we pull together or separately?”

Harcutt dropped his eyeglass and smiled quietly.

“Quixotic as usual, Wolf, old chap,” he said. “We can’t, our interests are opposed; at least yours and Densham’s are. You will scarcely want to help one another under the circumstances.”

Wolfenden drew on his gloves.

“I have not explained myself yet,” he said. “The thing must have its limitations, of course, but for a step or two even Densham and I can walk together. Let us form an alliance so far as direct information is concerned. Afterwards it must be every man for himself, of course. I suppose we each have some idea as to how and where to set about making inquiries concerning these people. Very well. Let us each go our own way and share up the information to-night.”

“I am quite willing,” Densham said, “only let this be distinctly understood—we are allies only so far as the collection and sharing of information is concerned. Afterwards, and in other ways, it is each man for himself. If one of us succeeds in establishing a definite acquaintance with them, the thing ends. There is no need for either of us to do anything with regard to the others, which might militate against his own chances.”

“I am agreeable to that,” Harcutt said. “From Densham’s very elaborate provisoes I think we may gather that he has a plan.”

“I agree too,” Wolfenden said, “and I specially endorse Densham’s limit. It is an alliance so far as regards information only. Suppose we go and have some lunch together now.”

“I never lunch out, and I have a better idea,” said Harcutt. “Let us meet at the ‘Milan’ to-night for supper at the same time. We can then exchange information, supposing either of us has been fortunate enough to acquire any. What do you say, Wolfenden?”

“I am quite willing,” Wolfenden said.

“And I,” echoed Densham. “At half-past eleven, then,” Harcutt concluded.

CHAPTER VII

WHO IS MR. SABIN?

Mrs. Thorpe-Satchell was not at home to ordinary callers. Nevertheless when a discreet servant brought her Mr. Francis Densham’s card she gave orders for his admittance without hesitation.

That he was a privileged person it was easy to see. Mrs. Satchell received him with the most charming of smiles.

“My dear Francis,” she exclaimed, “I do hope that you have lost that wretched headache! You looked perfectly miserable last night. I was so sorry for you.”

Densham drew an easy chair to her side and accepted a cup of tea.

“I am quite well again,” he said. “It was very bad indeed for a little time, but it did not last long. Still I felt that it made me so utterly stupid that I was half afraid you would have written me off your visitors’ list altogether as a dull person. I was immensely relieved to be told that you were at home.”

Mrs. Thorpe-Satchell laughed gaily. She was a bright, blonde little woman with an exquisite figure and piquante face. She had a husband whom no one knew, and gave excellent parties to which every one went. In her way she was something of a celebrity. She and Densham had known each other for many years.

“I am not sure,” she said, “that you did not deserve it; but then, you see, you are too old a friend to be so summarily dealt with.”

She raised her blue eyes to his and dropped them, smiling softly.

Densham looked steadily away into the fire, wondering how to broach the subject which had so suddenly taken the foremost place in his thoughts. He had not come to make even the idlest of love this afternoon. The time when he had been content to do so seemed very far away just now. Somehow this dainty little woman with her Watteau-like grace and delicate mannerisms had, for the present, at any rate, lost all her attractiveness for him, and he was able to meet the flash of her bright eyes and feel the touch of her soft fingers without any corresponding thrill.

“You are very good to me,” he said, thoughtfully. “May I have some more tea?”

Now Densham was no strategist. He had come to ask a question, and he was dying to ask it. He knew very well that it would not do to hurry matters—that he must put it as casually as possible towards the close of his visit. But at the same time, the period of probation, during which he should have been more than usually entertaining, was scarcely a success, and his manner was restless and constrained. Every now and then there were long and unusual pauses, and he continuously and with obvious effort kept bringing back the conversation to the reception last night, in the hope that some remark from her might make the way easier for him. But nothing of the sort happened. The reception had not interested her in the slightest, and she had nothing to say about it, and his pre-occupation at last became manifest. She looked at him curiously after one of those awkward pauses to which she was quite unaccustomed, and his thoughts were evidently far away. As a matter of fact, he was at that moment actually framing the question which he had come to ask.

“My dear Francis,” she said, quietly, “why don’t you tell me what is the matter with you? You are not amusing. You have something on your mind. Is it anything you wish to ask of me?”

“Yes,” he said, boldly, “I have come to ask you a favour.”

She smiled at him encouragingly.

“Well, do ask it,” she said, “and get rid of your woebegone face. You ought to know that if it is anything within my power I shall not hesitate.”

“I want,” he said, “to paint your portrait for next year’s Academy.”

This was a master stroke. To have Densham paint her picture was just at that moment the height of Mrs. Thorpe-Satchell’s ambition. A flush of pleasure came into her cheeks, and her eyes were very bright.

“Do you really mean it?” she exclaimed, leaning over towards him. “Are you sure?”

“Of course I mean it,” he answered. “If only I can do you justice, I think it ought to be the portrait of the year. I have been studying you for a long time in an indefinite sort of way, and I think that I have some good ideas.”

Mrs. Thorpe-Satchell laughed softly. Densham, although not a great artist, was the most fashionable portrait painter of the minute, and he had the knack of giving a chic touch to his women—of investing them with a certain style without the sacrifice of similitude. He refused quite as many commissions as he accepted, and he could scarcely have flattered Mrs. Thorpe-Satchell more than by his request. She was delightfully amiable.

“You are a dear old thing,” she said, beaming upon him. “What shall I wear? That yellow satin gown that you like, or say you like, so much?”

He discussed the question with her gravely. It was not until he rose to go that he actually broached the question which had been engrossing all his thoughts.

“By the bye,” he said, “I wanted to ask you something. You know Harcutt?”

She nodded. Of course she knew Harcutt. Were her first suspicions correct! Had he some other reason for this visit of his?

“Well,” Densham went on, “he is immensely interested in some people who were at that stupid reception last night. He tried to get an introduction but he couldn’t find any one who knew them, and he doesn’t know the Princess well enough to ask her. He thought that he saw you speaking to the man, so I promised that when I saw you I would ask about them.”

“I spoke to a good many men,” she said. “What is his name?”

“Sabin—Mr. Sabin; and there is a girl, his daughter, or niece, I suppose.”

Was it Densham’s fancy or had she indeed turned a shade paler. The little be-jewelled hand, which had been resting close to his, suddenly buried itself in the cushions. Densham, who was watching her closely, was conscious of a hardness about her mouth which he had never noticed before. She was silent some time before she answered him.

“I am sorry,” she said, slowly, “but I can tell you scarcely anything about them. I only met him once in India many years ago, and I have not the slightest idea as to who he is or where he came from. I am quite sure that I should not have recollected him last night but for his deformity.”

Densham tried very hard to hide his disappointment.

“So you met him in India,” he remarked. “Do you know what he was doing there? He was not in the service at all, I suppose.”

“I really do not know,” she answered, “but I think not. I believe that he is, or was, very wealthy. I remember hearing a few things about him—nothing of much importance. But if Mr. Harcutt is your friend,” she added, looking at him fixedly, “you can give him some excellent advice.”

“Harcutt is a very decent fellow,” Densham said, “and I know that he will be glad of it.”

“Tell him to have nothing whatever to do with Mr. Sabin.”

Densham looked at her keenly.

“Then you do know something about him,” he exclaimed.

She moved her chair back a little to where the light no longer played upon her face, and she answered him without looking up.

“Very little. It was so long ago and my memory is not what it used to be. Never mind that. The advice is good anyhow. If,” she continued, looking steadily up at Densham, “if it were not Mr. Harcutt who was interested in these people, if it were any one, Francis, for whose welfare I had a greater care, who was really my friend, I would make that advice, if I could, a thousand times stronger. I would implore him to have nothing whatever to do with this man or any of his creatures.”

Densham laughed—not very easily. His disappointment was great, but his interest was stimulated.

“At any rate,” he said, “the girl is harmless. She cannot have left school a year.”

“A year with that man,” she answered, bitterly, “is a liberal education in corruption. Don’t misunderstand me. I have no personal grievance against him. We have never come together, thank God! But there were stories—I cannot remember them now—I do not wish to remember them, but the impression they made still remains. If a little of what people said about him is true he is a prince of wickedness.”

“The girl herself——?”

“I know nothing of,” she admitted.

Densham determined upon a bold stroke.

“Look here,” he said, “do me this favour—you shall never regret it. You and the Princess are intimate, I know: order your carriage and go and see her this afternoon. Ask her what she knows about that girl. Get her to tell you everything. Then let me know. Don’t ask me to explain just now—simply remember that we are old friends and that I ask you to do this thing for me.”

She rang the bell.

“My victoria at once,” she told the servant. Then she turned to Densham. “I will do exactly what you ask,” she said. “You can come with me and wait while I see the Princess—if she is at home. You see I am doing for you what I would do for no one else in the world. Don’t trouble about thanking me now. Do you mind waiting while I get my things on? I shall only be a minute or two.”

Her minute or two was half an hour. Densham waited impatiently. He scarcely knew whether to be satisfied with the result of his mission or not. He had learnt a very little—he was probably going to learn a little more, but he was quite aware that he had not conducted the negotiations with any particular skill, and the bribe which he had offered was a heavy one. He was still uncertain about it when Mrs. Thorpe-Satchell reappeared. She had changed her indoor gown for a soft petunia-coloured costume trimmed with sable, and she held out her hands towards him with a delightful smile.

“Céleste is wretchedly awkward with gloves,” she said, “so I have left them for you. Do you like my gown?”

“You look charming,” he said, bending over his task, “and you know it.”

“I always wear my smartest clothes when I am going to see my particular friends,” she declared. “They quiz one so! Besides, I do not always have an escort! Come!”

She talked to him gaily on the stairs, as he handed her into the carriage, and all the way to their destination, yet he was conscious all the time of a subtle change in her demeanour towards him. She was a proud little woman, and she had received a shock. Densham was making use of her—Densham, of all men, was making use of her, of all women. He had been perfectly correct in those vague fears of his. She did not believe that he had come to her for his friend’s sake. She never doubted but that it was he himself who was interested in this girl, and she looked upon his visit and his request to her as something very nearly approaching brutality. He must be interested in the girl, very deeply interested, or he would never have resorted to such means of gaining information about her. She was suddenly silent and turned a little pale as the carriage turned into the square. Her errand was not a pleasant one to her.

Densham was left alone in the carriage for nearly an hour. He was impatient, and yet her prolonged absence pleased him. She had found the Princess in, she would bring him the information he desired. He sat gazing idly into the faces of the passers-by with his thoughts very far away. How that girl’s face had taken hold of his fancy; had excited in some strange way his whole artistic temperament! She was the exquisite embodiment of a new type of girlhood, from which was excluded all that was crude and unpleasing and unfinished. She seemed to him to combine in some mysterious manner all the dainty freshness of youth with the delicate grace and savoir faire of a Frenchwoman of the best period. He scarcely fancied himself in love with her; at any rate if it had been suggested to him he would have denied it. Her beauty had certainly taken a singular hold of him. His imagination was touched. He was immensely attracted, but as to anything serious—well, he would not have admitted it even to himself. Liberty meant so much to him, he had told himself over and over again that, for many years at least, his art must be his sole mistress. Besides, he was no boy to lose his heart, as certainly Wolfenden had done, to a girl with whom he had never even spoken. It was ridiculous, and yet——

A soft voice in his ear suddenly recalled him to the present. Mrs. Thorpe-Satchell was standing upon the pavement. The slight pallor had gone from her cheeks and the light had come back to her eyes. He looked at her, irresistibly attracted. She had never appeared more charming.

She stepped into the carriage, and the soft folds of her gown spread themselves out over the cushions. She drew them on one side to make room for him.

“Come,” she said, “let us have one turn in the Park. It is quite early, although I am afraid that I have been a very long time.”

He stepped in at once and they drove off. Mrs. Thorpe-Satchell laughingly repeated some story which the Princess had just told her. Evidently she was in high spirits. The strained look had gone from her face. Her gaiety was no longer forced.

“You want to know the result of my mission, I suppose,” she remarked, pleasantly. “Well, I am afraid you will call it a failure. The moment I mentioned the man’s name the Princess stopped me.

“‘You mustn’t talk to me about that man,’ she said. ‘Don’t ask why, only you must not talk about him.’

“‘I don’t want to,’ I assured her; ‘but the girl.’”

“What did she say about the girl?” Densham asked.

“Well she did tell me something about her,” Mrs. Thorpe-Satchell said, slowly, “but, unfortunately, it will not help your friend. She only told me when I had promised unconditionally and upon my honour to keep her information a profound secret. So I am sorry, Francis, but even to you——”

“Of course, you must not repeat it,” Densham said, hastily. “I would not ask you for the world; but is there not a single scrap of information about the man or the girl, who he is, what he is, of what family or nationality the girl is—anything at all which I can take to Harcutt?”

Mrs. Thorpe-Satchell looked straight at him with a faint smile at the corners of her lips.

“Yes, there is one thing which you can tell Mr. Harcutt,” she said.

Densham drew a little breath. At last, then!

“You can tell him this,” Mrs. Thorpe-Satchell said, slowly and impressively, “that if it is the girl, as I suppose it is, in whom he is interested, that the very best thing he can do is to forget that he has ever seen her. I cannot tell you who she is or what, although I know. But we are old friends, Francis, and I know that my word will be sufficient for you. You can take this from me as the solemn truth. Your friend had better hope for the love of the Sphinx, or fix his heart upon the statue of Diana, as think of that girl.”

Densham was looking straight ahead along the stream of vehicles. His eyes were set, but he saw nothing. He did not doubt her word for a moment. He knew that she had spoken the truth. The atmosphere seemed suddenly grey and sunless. He shivered a little—he was positively chilled. Just for a moment he saw the girl’s face, heard the swirl of her skirts as she had passed their table and the sound of her voice as she had bent over the great cluster of white roses whose faint perfume reached even to where they were sitting. Then he half closed his eyes. He had come very near making a terrible mistake.

“Thank you,” he said. “I will tell Harcutt.”

CHAPTER VIII

A MEETING IN BOND STREET

Wolfenden returned to his rooms to lunch, intending to go round to see his last night’s visitor immediately afterwards. He had scarcely taken off his coat, however, before Selby met him in the hall, a note in his hand.

“From the young lady, my lord,” he announced. “My wife has just sent it round.”

Wolfenden tore the envelope open and read it.

“Thursday morning.

“Dear Lord Wolfenden,—Of course I made a mistake in coming to you last night. I am very sorry indeed—more sorry than you will ever know. A woman does not forget these things readily, and the lesson you have taught me it will not be difficult for me to remember all my life. I cannot consent to remain your debtor, and I am leaving here at once. I shall have gone long before you receive this note. Do not try to find me. I shall not want for friends if I choose to seek them. Apart from this, I do not want to see you again. I mean it, and I trust to your honour to respect my wishes. I think that I may at least ask you to grant me this for the sake of those days at Deringham, which it is now my fervent wish to utterly forget.—I am, yours sincerely,

“Blanche Merton.”

“The young lady, my lord,” Selby remarked, “left early this morning. She expressed herself as altogether satisfied with the attention she had received, but she had decided to make other arrangements.”

Wolfenden nodded, and walked into his dining-room with the note crushed up in his hand.

“For the sake of those days at Deringham,” he repeated softly to himself. Was the girl a fool, or only an adventuress? It was true that there had been something like a very mild flirtation between them at Deringham, but it had been altogether harmless, and certainly more of her seeking than his. They had met in the grounds once or twice and walked together; he had talked to her a little after dinner, feeling a certain sympathy for her isolation, and perhaps a little admiration for her undoubted prettiness; yet all the time he had had a slightly uneasy feeling with regard to her. Her ingenuousness had become a matter of doubt to him. It was so now more than ever, yet he could not understand her going away like this and the tone of her note. So far as he was concerned, it was the most satisfactory thing that could have happened. It relieved him of a responsibility which he scarcely knew how to deal with. In the face of her dismissal from Deringham, any assistance which she might have accepted from him would naturally have been open to misapprehension. But that she should have gone away and have written to him in such a strain was directly contrary to his anticipations. Unless she was really hurt and disappointed by his reception of her, he could not see what she had to gain by it. He was puzzled a little, but his thoughts were too deeply engrossed elsewhere for him to take her disappearance very seriously. By the time he had finished lunch he had come to the conclusion that what had happened was for the best, and that he would take her at her word.

He left his rooms again about three o’clock, and at precisely the hour at which Densham had rung the bell of Mrs. Thorpe-Satchell’s house in Mayfair he experienced a very great piece of good fortune.

Coming out of Scott’s, where more from habit than necessity he had turned in to have his hat ironed, he came face to face, a few yards up Bond Street, with the two people whom, more than any one else in the world, he had desired to meet. They were walking together, the girl talking, the man listening with an air of half-amused deference. Suddenly she broke off and welcomed Wolfenden with a delightful smile of recognition. The man looked up quickly. Wolfenden was standing before them on the pavement, hat in hand, his pleasure at this unexpected meeting very plainly evidenced in his face. Mr. Sabin’s greeting, if devoid of any special cordiality, was courteous and even genial. Wolfenden never quite knew whence he got the impression, which certainly came to him with all the strength and absoluteness of an original inspiration, that this encounter was not altogether pleasant to him.

“How strange that we should meet you!” the girl said. “Do you know that this is the first walk that I have ever had in London?”

She spoke rather softly and rather slowly. Her voice possessed a sibilant and musical intonation; there was perhaps the faintest suggestion of an accent. As she stood there smiling upon him in a deep blue gown, trimmed with a silvery fur, in the making of which no English dressmaker had been concerned, Wolfenden’s subjection was absolute and complete. He was aware that his answer was a little flurried. He was less at his ease than he could have wished. Afterwards he thought of a hundred things he would have liked to have said, but the surprise of seeing them so suddenly had cost him a little of his usual self-possession. Mr. Sabin took up the conversation.

“My infirmity,” he said, glancing downwards, “makes walking, especially on stone pavements, rather a painful undertaking. However, London is one of those cities which can only be seen on foot, and my niece has all the curiosity of her age.”

She laughed out frankly. She wore no veil, and a tinge of colour had found its way into her cheeks, relieving that delicate but not unhealthy pallor, which to Densham had seemed so exquisite.

“I think shopping is delightful. Is it not?” she exclaimed.

Wolfenden was absolutely sure of it. He was, indeed, needlessly emphatic. Mr. Sabin smiled faintly.

“I am glad to have met you again, Lord Wolfenden,” he said, “if only to thank you for your aid last night. I was anxious to get away before any fuss was made, or I would have expressed my gratitude at the time in a more seemly fashion.”

“I hope,” Wolfenden said, “that you will not think it necessary to say anything more about it. I did what any one in my place would have done without a moment’s hesitation.”

“I am not quite so sure of that,” Mr. Sabin said. “But by the bye, can you tell me what became of the fellow? Did any one go after him?”

“There was some sort of pursuit, I believe,” Wolfenden said slowly, “but he was not caught.”

“I am glad to hear it,” Mr. Sabin said.

Wolfenden looked at him in some surprise. He could not make up his mind whether it was his duty to disclose the name of the man who had made this strange attempt.

“Your assailant was, I suppose, a stranger to you?” he said slowly.

Mr. Sabin shook his head.

“By no means. I recognised him directly. So, I believe, did you.”

Wolfenden was honestly amazed.

“He was your guest, I believe,” Mr. Sabin continued, “until I entered the room. I saw him leave, and I was half-prepared for something of the sort.”

“He was my guest, it is true, but none the less, he was a stranger to me,” Wolfenden explained. “He brought a letter from my cousin, who seems to have considered him a decent sort of fellow.”

“There is,” Mr. Sabin said dryly, “nothing whatever the matter with him, except that he is mad.”

“On the whole, I cannot say that I am surprised to hear it,” Wolfenden remarked; “but I certainly think that, considering the form his madness takes, you ought to protect yourself in some way.”

Mr. Sabin shrugged his shoulders contemptuously.

“He can never hurt me. I carry a talisman which is proof against any attempt that he can make; but none the less, I must confess that your aid last night was very welcome.”

“I was very pleased to be of any service,” Wolfenden said, “especially,” he added, glancing toward Mr. Sabin’s niece, “since it has given me the pleasure of your acquaintance.”

A little thrill passed through him. Her delicately-curved lips were quivering as though with amusement, and her eyes had fallen; she had blushed slightly at that unwitting, ardent look of his. Mr. Sabin’s cold voice recalled him to himself.

“I believe,” he said, “that I overheard your name correctly. It is Wolfenden, is it not?”

Wolfenden assented.

“I am sorry that I haven’t a card,” he said. “That is my name.”

Mr. Sabin looked at him curiously.

“Wolfenden is, I believe, the family name of the Deringhams? May I ask, are you any relation to Admiral Lord Deringham?”

Wolfenden was suddenly grave.

“Yes,” he answered; “he is my father. Did you ever meet him?”

Mr. Sabin shook his head.

“No, I have heard of him abroad; also, I believe, of the Countess of Deringham, your mother. It is many years ago. I trust that I have not inadvertently——”

“Not at all,” Wolfenden declared. “My father is still alive, although he is in very delicate health. I wonder, would you and your niece do me the honour of having some tea with me? It is Ladies’ Day at the ‘Geranium Club,’ and I should be delighted to take you there if you would allow me.”

Mr. Sabin shook his head.

Wolfenden had the satisfaction of seeing the girl look disappointed.

“We are very much obliged to you,” Mr. Sabin said, “but I have an appointment which is already overdue. You must not mind, Helène, if we ride the rest of the way.”

He turned and hailed a passing hansom, which drew up immediately at the kerb by their side. Mr. Sabin handed his niece in, and stood for a moment on the pavement with Wolfenden.

“I hope that we may meet again before long, Lord Wolfenden,” he said. “In the meantime let me assure you once more of my sincere gratitude.”

The girl leaned forward over the apron of the cab.

“And may I not add mine too?” she said. “I almost wish that we were not going to the ‘Milan’ again to-night. I am afraid that I shall be nervous.”

She looked straight at Wolfenden. He was ridiculously happy.

“I can promise,” he said, “that no harm shall come to Mr. Sabin to-night, at any rate. I shall be at the ‘Milan’ myself, and I will keep a very close look out.”

“How reassuring!” she exclaimed, with a brilliant smile. “Lord Wolfenden is going to be at the ‘Milan’ to-night,” she added, turning to Mr. Sabin. “Why don’t you ask him to join us? I shall feel so much more comfortable.”

There was a faint but distinct frown on Mr. Sabin’s face—a distinct hesitation before he spoke. But Wolfenden would notice neither. He was looking over Mr. Sabin’s shoulder, and his instructions were very clear.

“If you will have supper with us we shall be very pleased,” Mr. Sabin said stiffly; “but no doubt you have already made your party. Supper is an institution which one seldom contemplates alone.”

“I am quite free, and I shall be delighted,” Wolfenden said without hesitation. “About eleven, I suppose?”

“A quarter past,” Mr. Sabin said, stepping into the cab. “We may go to the theatre.”

The hansom drove off, and Wolfenden stood on the pavement, hat in hand. What fortune! He could scarcely believe in it. Then, just as he turned to move on, something lying at his feet almost at the edge of the kerbstone attracted his attention. He looked at it more closely. It was a ribbon—a little delicate strip of deep blue ribbon. He knew quite well whence it must have come. It had fallen from her gown as she had stepped into the hansom. He looked up and down the street. It was full, but he saw no one whom he knew. The thing could be done in a minute. He stooped quickly down and picked it up crushing it in his gloved hand, and walking on at once with heightened colour and a general sense of having made a fool of himself. For a moment or two he was especially careful to look neither to the right or to the left; then a sense that some one from the other side of the road was watching him drew his eyes in that direction. A young man was standing upon the edge of the pavement, a peculiar smile parting his lips and a cigarette between his fingers. For a moment Wolfenden was furiously angry; then the eyes of the two men met across the street, and Wolfenden forgot his anger. He recognised him at once, notwithstanding his appearance in an afternoon toilette as carefully chosen as his own. It was Felix, Mr. Sabin’s assailant.

CHAPTER IX

THE SHADOWS THAT GO BEFORE

Wolfenden forgot his anger at once. He hesitated for a moment, then he crossed the street and stood side by side with Felix upon the pavement.

“I am glad to see that you are looking a sane man again,” Wolfenden said, after they had exchanged the usual greetings. “You might have been in a much more uncomfortable place, after your last night’s escapade.”

Felix shrugged his shoulders.

“I think,” he said, “that if I had succeeded a little discomfort would only have amused me. It is not pleasant to fail.”

Wolfenden stood squarely upon his feet, and laid his hand lightly upon the other’s shoulder.

“Look here,” he said, “it won’t do for you to go following a man about London like this, watching for an opportunity to murder him. I don’t like interfering in other people’s business, but willingly or unwillingly I seem to have got mixed up in this, and I have a word or two to say about it. Unless you give me your promise, upon your honour, to make no further attempt upon that man’s life, I shall go to the police, tell them what I know, and have you watched.”

“You shall have,” Felix said quietly, “my promise. A greater power than the threat of your English police has tied my hands; for the present I have abandoned my purpose.”

“I am bound to believe you,” Wolfenden said, “and you look as though you were speaking the truth; yet you must forgive my asking why, in that case, you are following the man about? You must have a motive.”

Felix shook his head.

“As it happened,” he said, “I am here by the merest accident. It may seem strange to you, but it is perfectly true. I have just come out of Waldorf’s, above there, and I saw you all three upon the pavement.”

“I am glad to hear it,” Wolfenden said.

“More glad,” Felix said, “than I was to see you with them. Can you not believe what I tell you? shall I give you proof? will you be convinced then? Every moment you spend with that man is an evil one for you. You may have thought me inclined to be melodramatic last night. Perhaps I was! All the same the man is a fiend. Will you not be warned? I tell you that he is a fiend.”

“Perhaps he is,” Wolfenden said indifferently. “I am not interested in him.”

“But you are interested—in his companion.”

Wolfenden frowned.

“I think,” he said, “that we will leave the lady out of the conversation.”

Felix sighed.

“You are a good fellow,” he said; “but, forgive me, like all your countrymen, you carry chivalry just a thought too far—even to simplicity. You do not understand such people and their ways.”

Wolfenden was getting angry, but he held himself in check.

“You know nothing against her,” he said slowly.

“It is true,” Felix answered. “I know nothing against her. It is not necessary. She is his creature. That is apparent. The shadow of his wickedness is enough.”

Wolfenden checked himself in the middle of a hot reply. He was suddenly conscious of the absurdity of losing his temper in the open street with a man so obviously ill-balanced—possessed, too, of such strange and wild impulses.

“Let us talk,” he said, “of something else, or say good-morning. Which way were you going?”

“To the Russian Embassy,” Felix said, “I have some work to do this afternoon.”

Wolfenden looked at him curiously.

“Our ways, then, are the same for a short distance,” he said. “Let us walk together. Forgive me, but you are really, then, attached to the Embassy?”

Felix nodded, and glanced at his companion with a smile.

“I am not what you call a fraud altogether,” he said. “I am junior secretary to Prince Lobenski. You, I think, are not a politician, are you?”

Wolfenden shook his head.

“I take no interest in politics,” he said. “I shall probably have to sit in the House of Lords some day, but I shall be sorry indeed when the time comes.”

Felix sighed, and was silent for a moment.

“You are perhaps fortunate,” he said. “The ways of the politician are not exactly rose-strewn. You represent a class which in my country does not exist. There we are all either in the army, or interested in statecraft. Perhaps the secure position of your country does not require such ardent service?”

“You are—of what nationality, may I ask?” Wolfenden inquired.

Felix hesitated.

“Perhaps,” he said, “you had better not know. The less you know of me the better. The time may come when it will be to your benefit to be ignorant.”

Wolfenden took no pains to hide his incredulity.

“It is easy to see that you are a stranger in this country,” he remarked. “We are not in Russia or in South America. I can assure you that we scarcely know the meaning of the word ‘intrigue’ here. We are the most matter-of-fact and perhaps the most commonplace nation in the world. You will find it out for yourself in time. Whilst you are with us you must perforce fall to our level.”

“I, too, must become commonplace,” Felix said, smiling. “Is that what you mean?”

“In a certain sense, yes,” Wolfenden answered. “You will not be able to help it. It will be the natural result of your environment. In your own country, wherever that may be, I can imagine that you might be a person jealously watched by the police; your comings and goings made a note of; your intrigues—I take it for granted that you are concerned in some—the object of the most jealous and unceasing suspicion. Here there is nothing of that. You could not intrigue if you wanted to. There is nothing to intrigue about.”

They were crossing a crowded thoroughfare, and Felix did not reply until they were safe on the opposite pavement. Then he took Wolfenden’s arm, and, leaning over, almost whispered in his ear—

“You speak,” he said, “what nine-tenths of your countrymen believe. Yet you are wrong. Wherever there are international questions which bring great powers such as yours into antagonism, or the reverse, with other great countries, the soil is laid ready for intrigue, and the seed is never long wanted. Yes; I know that, to all appearance, you are the smuggest and most respectable nation ever evolved in this world’s history. Yet if you tell me that your’s is a nation free from intrigue, I correct you; you are wrong, you do not know—that is all! That very man, whose life last night you so inopportunely saved, is at this moment deeply involved in an intrigue against your country.”

“Mr. Sabin!” Wolfenden exclaimed.

“Yes, Mr. Sabin! Mind, I know this by chance only. I am not concerned one way or the other. My quarrel with him is a private one. I am robbed for the present of my vengeance by a power to which I am forced to yield implicit obedience. So, for the present, I have forgotten that he is my enemy. He is safe from me, yet if last night I had struck home, I should have ridded your country of a great and menacing danger. Perhaps—who can tell—he is a man who succeeds—I might even have saved England from conquest and ruin.”

They had reached the top of Piccadilly, and downward towards the Park flowed the great afternoon stream of foot-people and carriages. Wolfenden, on whom his companion’s words, charged as they were with an almost passionate earnestness, could scarcely fail to leave some impression, was silent for a moment.

“Do you really believe,” he said, “that ours is a country which could possibly stand in any such danger? We are outside all Continental alliances! We are pledged to support neither the dual or the triple alliance. How could we possibly become embroiled?”

“I will tell you one thing which you may not readily believe,” Felix said. “There is no country in the world so hated by all the great powers as England.”

Wolfenden shrugged his shoulders.

“Russia,” he remarked, “is perhaps jealous of our hold on Asia, but——”

“Russia,” Felix interrupted, “of all the countries in the world, except perhaps Italy, is the most friendly disposed towards you.”

Wolfenden laughed.

“Come,” he said, “you forget Germany.”

“Germany!” Felix exclaimed scornfully. “Believe it or not as you choose, but Germany detests you. I will tell you a thing which you can think of when you are an old man, and there are great changes and events for you to look back upon. A war between Germany and England is only a matter of time—of a few short years, perhaps even months. In the Cabinet at Berlin a war with you to-day would be more popular than a war with France.”

“You take my breath away,” Wolfenden exclaimed, laughing.

Felix was very much in earnest.

“In the little world of diplomacy,” he said, “in the innermost councils these things are known. The outside public knows nothing of the awful responsibilities of those who govern. Two, at least, of your ministers have realised the position. You read this morning in the papers of more warships and strengthened fortifications—already there have been whispers of the conscription. It is not against Russia or against France that you are slowly arming yourselves, it is against Germany!”

“Germany would be mad to fight us,” Wolfenden declared.

“Under certain conditions,” Felix said slowly. “Don’t be angry—Germany must beat you.”

Wolfenden, looking across the street, saw Harcutt on the steps of his club, and beckoned to him.

“There is Harcutt,” he exclaimed, pointing him out to Felix. “He is a journalist, you know, and in search of a sensation. Let us hear what he has to say about these things.”

But Felix unlinked his arm from Wolfenden’s hastily.

“You must excuse me,” he said. “Harcutt would recognise me, and I do not wish to be pointed out everywhere as a would-be assassin. Remember what I have said, and avoid Sabin and his parasites as you would the devil.”

Felix hurried away. Wolfenden remained for a moment standing in the middle of the pavement looking blankly along Piccadilly. Harcutt crossed over to him.

“You look,” he remarked to Wolfenden, “like a man who needs a drink.”

Wolfenden turned with him into the club.

“I believe that I do,” he said. “I have had rather an eventful hour.”

CHAPTER X

THE SECRETARY

Mr. Sabin, who had parted with Wolfenden with evident relief, leaned back in the cab and looked at his watch.

“That young man,” he remarked, “has wasted ten minutes of my time. He will probably have to pay for it some day.”

“By the bye,” the girl asked, “who is he?”

“His name is Wolfenden—Lord Wolfenden.”

“So I gathered; and who is Lord Wolfenden?”

“The only son of Admiral the Earl of Deringham. I don’t know anything more than that about him myself.”

“Admiral Deringham,” the girl repeated, thoughtfully; “the name sounds familiar.”

Mr. Sabin nodded.

“Very likely,” he said. “He was in command of the Channel Squadron at the time of the Magnificent disaster. He was barely half a mile away and saw the whole thing. He came in, too, rightly or wrongly, for a share of the blame.”

“Didn’t he go mad, or something?” the girl asked.

“He had a fit,” Mr. Sabin said calmly, “and left the service almost directly afterwards. He is living in strict seclusion in Norfolk, I believe. I should not like to say that he is mad. As a matter of fact, I do not believe that he is.”

She looked at him curiously. There was a note of reserve in his tone.

“You are interested in him, are you not?” she asked.

“In a measure,” he admitted. “He is supposed, mad or not, to be the greatest living authority on the coast defences of England and the state of her battleships. They shelved him at the Admiralty, but he wrote some vigorous letters to the papers and there are people pretty high up who believe in him. Others, of course, think that he is a crank.”

“But why,” she asked, languidly, “are you interested in such matters?”

Mr. Sabin knocked the ash off the cigarette he was smoking and was silent for a moment.

“One gets interested nowadays in—a great many things which scarcely seem to concern us,” he remarked deliberately. “You, for instance, seem interested in this man’s son. He cannot possibly be of any account to us.”

She shrugged her shoulders.

“Did I say that I was interested in him?”

“You did not,” Mr. Sabin answered, “but it was scarcely necessary; you stopped to speak to him of your own accord, and you asked him to supper, which was scarcely discreet.”

“One gets so bored sometimes,” she admitted frankly.

“You are only a woman,” he said indulgently; “a year of waiting seems to you an eternity, however vast the stake. There will come a time when you will see things differently.”

“I wonder!” she said softly, “I wonder!”

Mr. Sabin had unconsciously spoken the truth when he had pleaded an appointment to Lord Wolfenden. His servant drew him on one side directly they entered the house.

“There is a young lady here, sir, waiting for you in the study.”

“Been here long?” Mr. Sabin asked.

“About two hours, sir. She has rung once or twice to ask about you.”

Mr. Sabin turned away and opened the study door, carefully closing it behind him at once as he recognised his visitor. The air was blue with tobacco smoke, and the girl, who looked up at his entrance, held a cigarette between her fingers. Mr. Sabin was at least as surprised as Lord Wolfenden when he recognised his visitor, but his face was absolutely emotionless. He nodded not unkindly and stood looking at her, leaning upon his stick.

“Well, Blanche, what has gone wrong?” he asked.

“Pretty well everything,” she answered. “I’ve been turned away.”

“Detected?” he asked quickly.

“Suspected, at any rate. I wrote you that Lord Deringham was watching me sharply. Where he got the idea from I can’t imagine, but he got it and he got it right, anyhow. He’s followed me about like a cat, and it’s all up.”

“What does he know?”

“Nothing! He found a sheet of carbon on my desk, no more! I had to leave in an hour.”

“And Lady Deringham?”

“She is like the rest—she thinks him mad. She has not the faintest idea that, mad or not, he has stumbled upon the truth. She was glad to have me go—for other reasons; but she has not the faintest doubt but that I have been unjustly dismissed.”

“And he? How much does he know?”

“Exactly what I told you—nothing! His idea was just a confused one that I thought the stuff valuable—how you can make any sense of such trash I don’t know—and that I was keeping a copy back for myself. He was worrying for an excuse to get rid of me, and he grabbed at it.”

“Why was Lady Deringham glad to have you go?” Mr. Sabin asked.

“Because I amused myself with her son.”

“Lord Wolfenden?”

“Yes!”

For the first time since he had entered the room Mr. Sabin’s grim countenance relaxed. The corners of his lips slowly twisted themselves into a smile.

“Good girl,” he said. “Is he any use now?”

“None,” she answered with some emphasis. “None whatever. He is a fool.”

The colour in her cheeks had deepened a little. A light shot from her eyes. Mr. Sabin’s amusement deepened. He looked positively benign.

“You’ve tried him?” he suggested.

The girl nodded, and blew a little cloud of tobacco smoke from her mouth.

“Yes; I went there last night. He was very kind. He sent his servant out with me and got me nice, respectable rooms.”

Mr. Sabin did what was for him an exceptional thing. He sat down and laughed to himself softly, but with a genuine and obvious enjoyment.

“Blanche,” he said, “it was a lucky thing that I discovered you. No one else could have appreciated you properly.”

She looked at him with a sudden hardness.

“You should appreciate me,” she said, “for what I am you made me. I am of your handiwork: a man should appreciate the tool of his own fashioning.”

“Nature,” Mr. Sabin said smoothly, “had made the way easy for me. Mine were but finishing touches. But we have no time for this sort of thing. You have done well at Deringham and I shall not forget it. But your dismissal just now is exceedingly awkward. For the moment, indeed, I scarcely see my way. I wonder in what direction Lord Deringham will look for your successor?”

“Not anywhere within the sphere of your influence,” she answered. “I do not think that I shall have a successor at all just yet. There was only a week’s work to do. He will copy that himself.”

“I am very much afraid,” Mr. Sabin said, “that he will; yet we must have that copy.”

“You will be very clever,” she said slowly. “He has put watches all round the place, and the windows are barricaded. He sleeps with a revolver by his side, and there are several horrors in the shape of traps all round the house.”

“No wonder,” Mr. Sabin said, “that people think him mad.”

The girl laughed shortly.

“He is mad,” she said. “There is no possible doubt about that; you couldn’t live with him a day and doubt it.”

“Hereditary, no doubt,” Mr. Sabin suggested quietly.

Blanche shrugged her shoulders and leaned back yawning.

“Anyhow,” she said, “I’ve had enough of them all. It has been very tiresome work and I am sick of it. Give me some money. I want a spree. I am going to have a month’s holiday.”

Mr. Sabin sat down at his desk and drew out a cheque-book.

“There will be no difficulty about the money,” he said, “but I cannot spare you for a month. Long before that I must have the rest of this madman’s figures.”

The girl’s face darkened.

“Haven’t I told you,” she said, “that there is not the slightest chance of their taking me back? You might as well believe me. They wouldn’t have me, and I wouldn’t go.”

“I do not expect anything of the sort,” Mr. Sabin said. “There are other directions, though, in which I shall require your aid. I shall have to go to Deringham myself, and as I know nothing whatever about the place you will be useful to me there. I believe that your home is somewhere near there.”

“Well!”

“There is no reason, I suppose,” Mr. Sabin continued, “why a portion of the vacation you were speaking of should not be spent there?”

“None!” the girl replied, “except that it would be deadly dull, and no holiday at all. I should want paying for it.”

Mr. Sabin looked down at the cheque-book which lay open before him.

“I was intending,” he said, “to offer you a cheque for fifty pounds. I will make it one hundred, and you will rejoin your family circle at Fakenham, I believe, in one week from to-day.”

The girl made a wry face.

“The money’s all right,” she said; “but you ought to see my family circle! They are all cracked on farming, from the poor old dad who loses all his spare cash at it, down to little Letty my youngest sister, who can tell you everything about the last turnip crop. Do ride over and see us! You will find it so amusing!”

“I shall be charmed,” Mr. Sabin said suavely, as he commenced filling in the body of the cheque. “Are all your sisters, may I ask, as delightful as you?”

She looked at him defiantly.

“Look here,” she said, “none of that! Of course you wouldn’t come, but in any case I won’t have you. The girls are—well, not like me, I’m glad to say. I won’t have the responsibility of introducing a Mephistocles into the domestic circle.”

“I can assure you,” Mr. Sabin said, “that I had not the faintest idea of coming. My visit to Norfolk will be anything but a pleasure trip, and I shall have no time to spare.

“I believe I have your address: ‘Westacott Farm, Fakenham,’ is it not? Now do what you like in the meantime, but a week from to-day there will be a letter from me there. Here is the cheque.”

The girl rose and shook out her skirts.

“Aren’t you going to take me anywhere?” she asked. “You might ask me to have supper with you to-night.”

Mr. Sabin shook his head gently.

“I am sorry,” he said, “but I have a young lady living with me.”

“Oh!”

“She is my niece, and it takes more than my spare time to entertain her,” he continued, without noticing the interjection. “You have plenty of friends. Go and look them up and enjoy yourself—for a week. I have no heart to go pleasure-making until my work is finished.”

She drew on her gloves and walked to the door. Mr. Sabin came with her and opened it.

“I wish,” she said, “that I could understand what in this world you are trying to evolve from those rubbishy papers.”

He laughed.

“Some day,” he said, “I will tell you. At present you would not understand. Be patient a little longer.”

“It has been long enough,” she exclaimed. “I have had seven months of it.”

“And I,” he answered, “seven years. Take care of yourself and remember, I shall want you in a week.”

CHAPTER XI

THE FRUIT THAT IS OF GOLD

At precisely the hour agreed upon Harcutt and Densham met in one of the ante-rooms leading into the “Milan” restaurant. They surrendered their coats and hats to an attendant, and strolled about waiting for Wolfenden. A quarter of an hour passed. The stream of people from the theatres began to grow thinner. Still, Wolfenden did not come. Harcutt took out his watch.

“I propose that we do not wait any longer for Wolfenden,” he said. “I saw him this afternoon, and he answered me very oddly when I reminded him about to-night. There is such a crowd here too, that they will not keep our table much longer.”

“Let us go in, by all means,” Densham agreed. “Wolfenden will easily find us if he wants to!”

Harcutt returned his watch to his pocket slowly, and without removing his eyes from Densham’s face.

“You’re not looking very fit, old chap,” he remarked. “Is anything wrong?”

Densham shook his head and turned away.

“I am a little tired,” he said. “We’ve been keeping late hours the last few nights. There’s nothing the matter with me, though. Come, let us go in!”

Harcutt linked his arm in Densham’s. The two men stood in the doorway.

“I have not asked you yet,” Harcutt said, in a low tone. “What fortune?”

Densham laughed a little bitterly.

“I will tell you all that I know presently,” he said.

“You have found out something, then?”

“I have found out,” Densham answered, “all that I care to know! I have found out so much that I am leaving England within a week!”

Harcutt looked at him curiously.

“Poor old chap,” he said softly. “I had no idea that you were so hard hit as all that, you know.”

They passed through the crowded room to their table. Suddenly Harcutt stopped short and laid his hand upon Densham’s arm.

“Great Scott!” he exclaimed. “Look at that! No wonder we had to wait for Wolfenden!”

Mr. Sabin and his niece were occupying the same table as on the previous night, only this time they were not alone. Wolfenden was sitting there between the two. At the moment of their entrance, he and the girl were laughing together. Mr. Sabin, with the air of one wholly detached from his companions, was calmly proceeding with his supper.

“I understand now,” Harcutt whispered, “what Wolfenden meant this afternoon. When I reminded him about to-night, he laughed and said: ‘Well, I shall see you, at any rate.’ I thought it was odd at the time. I wonder how he managed it?”

Densham made no reply. The two men took their seats in silence. Wolfenden was sitting with his back half-turned to them, and he had not noticed their entrance. In a moment or two, however, he looked round, and seeing them, leaned over towards the girl and apparently asked her something. She nodded, and he immediately left his seat and joined them.

There was a little hesitation, almost awkwardness in their greetings. No one knew exactly what to say.

“You fellows are rather late, aren’t you?” Wolfenden remarked.

“We were here punctually enough,” Harcutt replied; “but we have been waiting for you nearly a quarter of an hour.”

“I am sorry,” Wolfenden said. “The fact is I ought to have left word when I came in, but I quite forgot it. I took it for granted that you would look into the room when you found that I was behind time.”

“Well, it isn’t of much consequence,” Harcutt declared; “we are here now, at any rate, although it seems that after all we are not to have supper together.”

Wolfenden glanced rapidly over his shoulder.

“You understand the position, of course,” he said. “I need not ask you to excuse me.”

Harcutt nodded.

“Oh, we’ll excuse you, by all means; but on one condition—we want to know all about it. Where can we see you afterwards?”

“At my rooms,” Wolfenden said, turning away and resuming his seat at the other table.

Densham had made no attempt whatever to join in the conversation. Once his eyes had met Wolfenden’s, and it seemed to the latter that there was a certain expression there which needed some explanation. It was not anger—it certainly was not envy. Wolfenden was puzzled—he was even disturbed. Had Densham discovered anything further than he himself knew about this man and the girl? What did he mean by looking as though the key to this mysterious situation was in his hands, and as though he had nothing but pity for the only one of the trio who had met with any success? Wolfenden resumed his seat with an uncomfortable conviction that Densham knew more than he did about these people whose guest he had become, and that the knowledge had damped all his ardour. There was a cloud upon his face for a moment. The exuberance of his happiness had received a sudden check. Then the girl spoke to him, and the memory of Densham’s unspoken warning passed away. He looked at her long and searchingly. Her face was as innocent and proud as the face of a child. She was unconscious even of his close scrutiny. The man might be anything; it might even be that every word that Felix had spoken was true. But of the girl he would believe no evil, he would not doubt her even for a moment.

“Your friend,” remarked Mr. Sabin, helping himself to an ortolan, “is a journalist, is he not? His face seems familiar to me although I have forgotten his name, if ever I knew it.”

“He is a journalist,” Wolfenden answered. “Not one of the rank and file—rather a dilettante, but still a hard worker. He is devoted to his profession, though, and his name is Harcutt.”

“Harcutt!” Mr. Sabin repeated, although he did not appear to recollect the name. “He is a political journalist, is he not?”

“Not that I am aware of,” Wolfenden answered. “He is generally considered to be the great scribe of society. I believe that he is interested in foreign politics, though.”

“Ah!”

Mr. Sabin’s interjection was significant, and Wolfenden looked up quickly but fruitlessly. The man’s face was impenetrable.

“The other fellow,” Wolfenden said, turning to the girl, “is Densham, the painter. His picture in this year’s Academy was a good deal talked about, and he does some excellent portraits.”

She threw a glance at him over her gleaming white shoulder.

“He looks like an artist,” she said. “I liked his picture—a French landscape, was it not? And his portrait of the Countess of Davenport was magnificent.”

“If you would care to know him,” Wolfenden said, “I should be very happy to present him to you.”

Mr. Sabin looked up and shook his head quickly, but firmly.

“You must excuse us,” he said. “My niece and I are not in England for very long, and we have reasons for avoiding new acquaintances as much as possible.”

A shade passed across the girl’s face. Wolfenden would have given much to have known into what worlds those clear, soft eyes, suddenly set in a far away gaze, were wandering—what those regrets were which had floated up so suddenly before her. Was she too as impenetrable as the man, or would he some day share with her what there was of sorrow or of mystery in her young life? His heart beat with unaccustomed quickness at the thought. Mr. Sabin’s last remark, the uncertainty of his own position with regard to these people, filled him with sudden fear; it might be that he too was to be included in the sentence which had just been pronounced. He looked up from the table to find Mr. Sabin’s cold, steely eyes fixed upon him, and acting upon a sudden impulse he spoke what was nearest to his heart.

“I hope,” he said, “that the few acquaintances whom fate does bring you are not to suffer for the same reason.”

Mr. Sabin smiled and poured himself out a glass of wine.

“You are very good,” he said. “I presume that you refer to yourself. We shall always be glad that we met you, shall we not, Helène? But I doubt very much if, after to-night, we shall meet again in England at all.”

To Wolfenden the light seemed suddenly to have gone out, and the soft, low music to have become a wailing dirge. He retained some command of his features only by a tremendous effort. Even then he felt that he had become pale, and that his voice betrayed something of the emotion that he felt.

“You are going away,” he said slowly—“abroad!”

“Very soon indeed,” Mr. Sabin answered. “At any rate, we leave London during the week. You must not look upon us, Lord Wolfenden, as ordinary pleasure-seekers. We are wanderers upon the face of the earth, not so much by choice as by destiny. I want you to try one of these cigarettes. They were given to me by the Khedive, and I think you will admit that he knows more about tobacco than he does about governing.”

The girl had been gazing steadfastly at the grapes that lay untasted upon her plate, and Wolfenden glanced towards her twice in vain; now, however, she looked up, and a slight smile parted her lips as her eyes met his. How pale she was, and how suddenly serious!

“Do not take my uncle too literally, Lord Wolfenden,” she said softly. “I hope that we shall meet again some time, if not often. I should be very sorry not to think so. We owe you so much.”

There was an added warmth in those last few words, a subtle light in her eyes. Was she indeed a past mistress in all the arts of coquetry, or was there not some message for him in that lowered tone and softened glance? He sat spellbound for a moment. Her bosom was certainly rising and falling more quickly. The pearls at her throat quivered. Then Mr. Sabin’s voice, cold and displeased, dissolved the situation.

“I think, Helène, if you are ready, we had better go,” he said. “It is nearly half-past twelve, and we shall escape the crush if we leave at once.”

She stood up silently, and Wolfenden, with slow fingers, raised her cloak from the back of the chair and covered her shoulders. She thanked him softly, and turning away, walked down the room followed by the two men. In the ante-room Mr. Sabin stopped.

“My watch,” he remarked, “was fast. You will have time after all for a cigarette with your friends. Good-night.”

Wolfenden had no alternative but to accept his dismissal. A little, white hand, flashing with jewels, but shapely and delicate, stole out from the dark fur of her cloak, and he held it within his for a second.

“I hope,” he said, “that at any rate you will allow me to call, and say goodbye before you leave England?”

She looked at him with a faint smile upon her lips. Yet her eyes were very sad.

“You have heard what my inexorable guardian has said, Lord Wolfenden,” she answered quietly. “I am afraid he is right. We are wanderers, he and I, with no settled home.”

“I shall venture to hope,” he said boldly, “that some day you will make one—in England.”

A tinge of colour flashed into her cheeks. Her eyes danced with amusement at his audacity—then they suddenly dropped, and she caught up the folds of her gown.

“Ah, well,” she said demurely, “that would be too great a happiness. Farewell! One never knows.”

She yielded at last to Mr. Sabin’s cold impatience, and turning away, followed him down the staircase. Wolfenden remained at the top until she had passed out of sight; he lingered even for a moment or two afterwards, inhaling the faint, subtle perfume shaken from her gown—a perfume which reminded him of an orchard of pink and white apple blossoms in Normandy. Then he turned back, and finding Harcutt and Densham lingering over their coffee, sat down beside them.

Harcutt looked at him through half-closed eyes—a little cloud of blue tobacco smoke hung over the table. Densham had eaten little, but smoked continually.

“Well?” he asked laconically.

“After all,” Wolfenden said, “I have not very much to tell you fellows. Mr. Sabin did not call upon me; I met him by chance in Bond Street, and the girl asked me to supper, more I believe in jest than anything. However, of course I took advantage of it, and I have spent the evening since eleven o’clock with them. But as to gaining any definite information as to who or what they are, I must confess I’ve failed altogether. I know no more than I did yesterday.”

“At any rate,” Harcutt remarked, “you will soon learn all that you care to know. You have inserted the thin end of the wedge. You have established a visiting acquaintance.”

Wolfenden flicked the end from his cigarette savagely.

“Nothing of the sort,” he declared. “They have not given me their address, or asked me to call. On the contrary, I was given very clearly to understand by Mr. Sabin that they were only travellers and desired no acquaintances. I know them, that is all; what the next step is to be I have not the faintest idea.”

Densham leaned over towards them. There was a strange light in his eyes—a peculiar, almost tremulous, earnestness in his tone.

“Why should there be any next step at all?” he said. “Let us all drop this ridiculous business. It has gone far enough. I have a presentiment—not altogether presentiment either, as it is based upon a certain knowledge. It is true that these are not ordinary people, and the girl is beautiful. But they are not of our lives! Let them pass out. Let us forget them.”

Harcutt shook his head.

“The man is too interesting to be forgotten or ignored,” he said. “I must know more about him, and before many days have passed.”

Densham turned to the younger man.

“At least, Wolfenden,” he said, “you will listen to reason. I tell you as a man of honour, and I think I may add as your friend, that you are only courting disappointment. The girl is not for you, or me, or any of us. If I dared tell you what I know, you would be the first to admit it yourself.”

Wolfenden returned Densham’s eager gaze steadfastly.

“I have gone,” he said calmly, “too far to turn back. You fellows both know I am not a woman’s man. I’ve never cared for a girl in all my life, or pretended to, seriously. Now that I do, it is not likely that I shall give her up without any definite reason. You must speak more plainly, Densham, or not at all.”

Densham rose from his chair.

“I am very sorry,” he said.

Wolfenden turned upon him, frowning.

“You need not be,” he said. “You and Harcutt have both, I believe, heard some strange stories concerning the man; but as for the girl, no one shall dare to speak an unbecoming word of her.”

“No one desired to,” Densham answered quietly. “And yet there may be other and equally grave objections to any intercourse with her.”

Wolfenden smiled confidently.

“Nothing in the world worth winning,” he said, “is won without an effort, or without difficulty. The fruit that is of gold does not drop into your mouth.”

The band had ceased to play and the lights went out. Around them was all the bustle of departure. The three men rose and left the room.

CHAPTER XII

WOLFENDEN’S LUCK

To leave London at all, under ordinary circumstances, was usually a hardship for Wolfenden, but to leave London at this particular moment of his life was little less than a calamity, yet a letter which he received a few mornings after the supper at the “Milan” left him scarcely any alternative. He read it over for the third time whilst his breakfast grew cold, and each time his duty seemed to become plainer.

“Deringham Hall, Norfolk.

“My dear Wolfenden,—We have been rather looking for you to come down for a day or two, and I do hope that you will be able to manage it directly you receive this. I am sorry to say that your father is very far from well, and we have all been much upset lately. He still works for eight or nine hours a day, and his hallucinations as to the value of his papers increases with every page he writes. His latest peculiarity is a rooted conviction that there is some plot on hand to rob him of his manuscripts. You remember, perhaps, Miss Merton, the young person whom we engaged as typewriter. He sent her away the other day, without a moment’s notice, simply because he saw her with a sheet of copying paper in her hand. I did not like the girl, but it is perfectly ridiculous to suspect her of anything of the sort. He insisted, however, that she should leave the house within an hour, and we were obliged to give in to him. Since then he has seemed to become even more fidgety. He has had cast-iron shutters fitted to the study windows, and two of the keepers are supposed to be on duty outside night and day, with loaded revolvers. People around here are all beginning to talk, and I am afraid that it is only natural that they should. He will see no one, and the library door is shut and bolted immediately he has entered it. Altogether it is a deplorable state of things, and what will be the end of it I cannot imagine. Sometimes it occurs to me that you might have more influence over him than I have. I hope that you will be able to come down, if only for a day or two, and see what effect your presence has. The shooting is not good this year, but Captain Willis was telling me yesterday that the golf links were in excellent condition, and there is the yacht, of course, if you care to use it. Your father seems to have quite forgotten that she is still in the neighbourhood, I am glad to say. Those inspection cruises were very bad things for him. He used to get so excited, and he was dreadfully angry if the photographs which I took were at all imperfectly developed. How is everybody? Have you seen Lady Susan lately? and is it true that Eleanor is engaged? I feel literally buried here, but I dare not suggest a move. London, for him at present, would be madness. I shall hope to get a wire from you to-morrow, and will send to Cromer to meet any train.—From your affectionate mother,

“Constance Manver Deringham.”

There was not a word of reproach in the letter, but nevertheless Wolfenden felt a little conscience-stricken. He ought to have gone down to Deringham before; most certainly after the receipt of this summons he could not delay his visit any longer. He walked up and down the room impatiently. To leave London just now was detestable. It was true that he could not call upon them, and he had no idea where else to look for these people, who, for some mysterious reason, seemed to be doing all that they could to avoid his acquaintance. Yet chance had favoured him once—chance might stand his friend again. At any rate to feel himself in the same city with her was some consolation. For the last three days he had haunted Piccadilly and Bond Street. He had become a saunterer, and the shop windows had obtained from him an attention which he had never previously bestowed upon them. The thought that, at any turning, at any moment, they might meet, continually thrilled him. The idea of a journey which would place such a meeting utterly out of the question, was more than distasteful—it was hateful.

And yet he would have to go. He admitted that to himself as he ate his solitary breakfast, with the letter spread out before him. Since it was inevitable, he decided to lose no time. Better go at once and have it over. The sooner he got there the sooner he would be able to return. He rang the bell, and gave the necessary orders. At a quarter to twelve he was at King’s Cross.

He took his ticket in a gloomy frame of mind, and bought the Field and a sporting novel at the bookstall. Then he turned towards the train, and walking idly down the platform, looking for Selby and his belongings, he experienced what was very nearly the greatest surprise of his life. So far, coincidence was certainly doing her best to befriend him. A girl was seated alone in the further corner of a first-class carriage. Something familiar in the poise of her head, or the gleam of her hair gathered up underneath an unusually smart travelling hat, attracted his attention. He came to a sudden standstill, breathless, incredulous. She was looking out of the opposite window, her head resting upon her fingers, but a sudden glimpse of her profile assured him that this was no delusion. It was Mr. Sabin’s niece who sat there, a passenger by his own train, probably, as he reflected with a sudden illuminative flash of thought, to be removed from the risk of any more meetings with him.

Wolfenden, with a discretion at which he afterwards wondered, did not at once attract her attention. He hurried off to the smoking carriage before which his servant was standing, and had his own belongings promptly removed on to the platform. Then he paid a visit to the refreshment-room, and provided himself with an extensive luncheon basket, and finally, at the bookstall, he bought up every lady’s paper and magazine he could lay his hands upon. There was only a minute now before the train was due to leave, and he walked along the platform as though looking for a seat, followed by his perplexed servant. When he arrived opposite to her carriage, he paused, only to find himself confronted by a severe-looking maid dressed in black, and the guard. For the first time he noticed the little strip, “engaged,” pasted across the window.

“Plenty of room lower down, sir,” the guard remarked. “This is an engaged carriage.”

The maid whispered something to the guard, who nodded and locked the door. At the sound of the key, however, the girl looked round and saw Wolfenden. She lifted her eyebrows and smiled faintly. Then she came to the window and let it down.

“Whatever are you doing here?” she asked. “You——”

He interrupted her gently. The train was on the point of departure.

“I am going down into Norfolk,” he said. “I had not the least idea of seeing you. I do not think that I was ever so surprised.”

Then he hesitated for a moment.

“May I come in with you?” he asked.

She laughed at him. He had been so afraid of her possible refusal, that his question had been positively tremulous.

“I suppose so,” she said slowly. “Is the train quite full, then?”

He looked at her quite keenly. She was laughing at him with her eyes—an odd little trick of hers. He was himself again at once, and answered mendaciously, but with emphasis—

“Not a seat anywhere. I shall be left behind if you don’t take me in.”

A word in the guard’s ear was quite sufficient, but the maid looked at Wolfenden suspiciously. She leaned into the carriage.

“Would mademoiselle prefer that I, too, travelled with her?” she inquired in French.

The girl answered her in the same language.

“Certainly not, Céleste. You had better go and take your seat at once. We are just going!”

The maid reluctantly withdrew, with disapproval very plainly stamped upon her dark face. Wolfenden and his belongings were bundled in, and the whistle blew. The train moved slowly out of the station. They were off!

“I believe,” she said, looking with a smile at the pile of magazines and papers littered all over the seat, “that you are an impostor. Or perhaps you have a peculiar taste in literature!”

She pointed towards the Queen and the Gentlewoman. He was in high spirits, and he made open confession.

“I saw you ten minutes ago,” he declared, “and since then I have been endeavouring to make myself an acceptable travelling companion. But don’t begin to study the fashions yet, please. Tell me how it is that after looking all over London for three days for you, I find you here.”

“It is the unexpected,” she remarked, “which always happens. But after all there is nothing mysterious about it. I am going down to a little house which my uncle has taken, somewhere near Cromer. You will think it odd, I suppose, considering his deformity, but he is devoted to golf, and some one has been telling him that Norfolk is the proper county to go to.”

“And you?” he asked.

She shook her head disconsolately.

“I am afraid I am not English enough to care much for games,” she admitted. “I like riding and archery, and I used to shoot a little, but to go into the country at this time of the year to play any game seems to me positively barbarous. London is quite dull enough—but the country—and the English country, too!—well, I have been engrossed in self-pity ever since my uncle announced his plans.”

“I do not imagine,” he said smiling, “that you care very much for England.”

“I do not imagine,” she admitted promptly, “that I do. I am a Frenchwoman, you see, and to me there is no city on earth like Paris, and no country like my own.”

“The women of your nation,” he remarked, “are always patriotic. I have never met a Frenchwoman who cared for England.”

“We have reason to be patriotic,” she said, “or rather, we had,” she added, with a curious note of sadness in her tone. “But, come, I do not desire to talk about my country. I admitted you here to be an entertaining companion, and you have made me speak already of the subject which is to me the most mournful in the world. I do not wish to talk any more about France. Will you please think of another subject?”

“Mr. Sabin is not with you,” he remarked.

“He intended to come. Something important kept him at the last moment. He will follow me, perhaps, by a later train to-day, if not to-morrow.”

“It is certainly a coincidence,” he said, “that you should be going to Cromer. My home is quite near there.”

“And you are going there now?” she asked.

“I am delighted to say that I am.”

“You did not mention it the other evening,” she remarked. “You talked as though you had no intention at all of leaving London.”

“Neither had I at that time,” he said. “I had a letter from home this morning which decided me.”

She smiled softly.

“Well, it is strange,” she said. “On the whole, it is perhaps fortunate that you did not contemplate this journey when we had supper together the other night.”

He caught at her meaning, and laughed.

“It is more than fortunate,” he declared. “If I had known of it, and told Mr. Sabin, you would not have been travelling by this train alone.”

“I certainly should not,” she admitted demurely.

He saw his opportunity, and swiftly availed himself of it.

“Why does your uncle object to me so much?” he asked.

“Object to you!” she repeated. “On the contrary, I think that he rather approves of you. You saved his life, or something very much like it. He should be very grateful! I think that he is!”

“Yet,” he persisted, “he does not seem to desire my acquaintance—for you, at any rate. You have just admitted, that if he had known that there was any chance of our being fellow passengers you would not have been here.”

She did not answer him immediately. She was looking fixedly out of the window. Her face seemed to him more than ordinarily grave. When she turned her head, her eyes were thoughtful—a little sad.

“You are quite right,” she said. “My uncle does not think it well for me to make any acquaintances in this country. We are not here for very long. No doubt he is right. He has at least reason on his side. Only it is a little dull for me, and it is not what I have been used to. Yet there are sacrifices always. I cannot tell you any more. You must please not ask me. You are here, and I am pleased that you are here! There! will not that content you?”

“It gives me,” he answered earnestly, “more than contentment! It is happiness!”

“That is precisely the sort of thing,” she said slowly to him, with laughter in her eyes, “which you are not to say! Please understand that!”

He accepted the rebuke lightly. He was far too happy in being with her to be troubled by vague limitations. The present was good enough for him, and he did his best to entertain her. He noticed with pleasure that she did not even glance at the pile of papers at her side. They talked without intermission. She was interested, even gay. Yet he could not but notice that every now and then, especially at any reference to the future, her tone grew graver and a shadow passed across her face. Once he said something which suggested the possibility of her living always in England. She had shaken her head at once, gently but firmly.

“No, I could never live in this country,” she said, “even if my liking for it grew. It would be impossible!”

He was puzzled for a moment.

“You think that you could never care for it enough,” he suggested; “yet you have scarcely had time to judge it fairly. London in the spring is gay enough, and the life at some of our country houses is very different to what it was a few years ago. Society is so much more tolerant and broader.”

“It is scarcely a question,” she said, “of my likes or dislikes. Next to Paris, I prefer London in the spring to any city in Europe, and a week I spent at Radnett was very delightful. But, nevertheless, I could never live here. It is not my destiny!”

The old curiosity was strong upon him. Radnett was the home of the Duchess of Radnett and Ilchester, who had the reputation of being the most exclusive hostess in Europe! He was bewildered.

“I would give a great deal,” he said earnestly, “to know what you believe that destiny to be.”

“We are bordering upon the forbidden subject,” she reminded him, with a look which was almost reproachful. “You must please believe me when I tell you, that for me things have already been arranged otherwise. Come, I want you to tell me all about this country into which we are going. You must remember that to me it is all new!”

He suffered her to lead the conversation into other channels, with a vague feeling of disquiet. The mystery which hung around the girl and her uncle seemed only to grow denser as his desire to penetrate it grew. At present, at any rate, he was baffled. He dared ask no more questions.

The train glided into Peterborough station before either of them were well aware that they had entered in earnest upon the journey. Wolfenden looked out of the window with amazement.

“Why, we are nearly half way there!” he exclaimed. “How wretched!”

She smiled, and took up a magazine. Wolfenden’s servant came respectfully to the window.

“Can I get you anything, my lord?” he inquired.

Wolfenden shook his head, and opening the door, stepped out on to the platform.

“Nothing, thanks, Selby,” he said. “You had better get yourself some lunch. We don’t get to Deringham until four o’clock.”

The man raised his hat and turned away. In a moment, however, he was back again.

“You will pardon my mentioning it, my lord,” he said, “but the young lady’s maid has been travelling in my carriage, and a nice fidget she’s been in all the way. She’s been muttering to herself in French, and she seems terribly frightened about something or other. The moment the train stopped here, she rushed off to the telegraph office.”

“She seems a little excitable,” Wolfenden remarked. “All right, Selby, you’d better hurry up and get what you want to eat.”

“Certainly, my lord; and perhaps your lordship knows that there is a flower-stall in the corner there.”

Wolfenden nodded and hurried off. He returned to the carriage just as the train was moving off, with a handful of fresh, wet violets, whose perfume seemed instantly to fill the compartment. The girl held out her hands with a little exclamation of pleasure.

“What a delightful travelling companion you are,” she declared. “I think these English violets are the sweetest flowers in the world.”

She held them up to her lips. Wolfenden was looking at a paper bag in her lap.

“May I inquire what that is?” he asked.

“Buns!” she answered. “You must not think that because I am a girl I am never hungry. It is two o’clock, and I am positively famished. I sent my maid for them.”

He smiled, and sweeping away the bundles of rugs and coats, produced the luncheon basket which he had secured at King’s Cross, and opening it, spread out the contents.

“For two!” she exclaimed, “and what a delightful looking salad! Where on earth did that come from?”

“Oh, I am no magician,” he exclaimed. “I ordered the basket at King’s Cross, after I had seen you. Let me spread the cloth here. My dressing-case will make a capital table!”

They picnicked together gaily. It seemed to Wolfenden that chicken and tongue had never tasted so well before, or claret, at three shillings the bottle, so full and delicious. They cleared everything up, and then sat and talked over the cigarette which she had insisted upon. But although he tried more than once, he could not lead the conversation into any serious channel—she would not talk of her past, she distinctly avoided the future. Once, when he had made a deliberate effort to gain some knowledge as to her earlier surroundings, she reproved him with a silence so marked that he hastened to talk of something else.

“Your maid,” he said, “is greatly distressed about something. She sent a telegram off at Peterborough. I hope that your uncle will not make himself unpleasant because of my travelling with you.”

She smiled at him quite undisturbed.

“Poor Céleste,” she said. “Your presence here has upset her terribly. Mr. Sabin has some rather strange notions about me, and I am quite sure that he would rather have sent me down in a special train than have had this happen. You need not look so serious about it.”

“It is only on your account,” he assured her.

“Then you need not look serious at all,” she continued. “I am not under my uncle’s jurisdiction. In fact, I am quite an independent person.”

“I am delighted to hear it,” he said heartily. “I should imagine that Mr. Sabin would not be at all a pleasant person to be on bad terms with.”

She smiled thoughtfully.

“There are a good many people,” she said, “who would agree with you. There are a great many people in the world who have cause to regret having offended him. Let us talk of something else. I believe that I can see the sea!”

They were indeed at Cromer. He found a carriage for her, and collected her belongings. He was almost amused at her absolute indolence in the midst of the bustle of arrival. She was evidently unused to doing the slightest thing for herself. He took the address which she gave to him, and repeated it to the driver. Then he asked the question which had been trembling many times upon his lips.

“May I come and see you?”

She had evidently been considering the matter, for she answered him at once and deliberately.

“I should like you to,” she said; “but if for any reason it did not suit my uncle to have you come, it would not be pleasant for either of us. He is going to play golf on the Deringham links. You will be certain to see him there, and you must be guided by his manner towards you.”

“And if he is still—as he was in London—must this be goodbye, then?” he asked earnestly.

She looked at him with a faint colour in her cheeks and a softer light in her proud, clear eyes.

“Well,” she said, “goodbye would be the last word which could be spoken between us. But, n’importe, we shall see.”

She flashed a suddenly brilliant smile upon him, and leaned back amongst the cushions. The carriage drove off, and Wolfenden, humming pleasantly to himself, stepped into the dogcart which was waiting for him.

CHAPTER XIII

A GREAT WORK

The Countess of Deringham might be excused for considering herself the most unfortunate woman in England. In a single week she had passed from the position of one of the most brilliant leaders of English society to be the keeper of a recluse, whose sanity was at least doubtful. Her husband, Admiral the Earl of Deringham, had been a man of iron nerve and constitution, with a splendid reputation, and undoubtedly a fine seaman. The horror of a single day had broken up his life. He had been the awe-stricken witness of a great naval catastrophe, in which many of his oldest friends and companions had gone to the bottom of the sea before his eyes, together with nearly a thousand British seamen. The responsibility for the disaster lay chiefly from those who had perished in it, yet some small share of the blame was fastened upon the onlookers, and he himself, as admiral in command, had not altogether escaped. From the moment when they had led him down from the bridge of his flagship, grey and fainting, he had been a changed man. He had never recovered from the shock. He retired from active service at once, under a singular and marvellously persistent delusion. Briefly he believed, or professed to believe, that half the British fleet had perished, and that the country was at the mercy of the first great Power who cared to send her warships up the Thames. It was a question whether he was really insane; on any ordinary topic his views were the views of a rational man, but the task which he proceeded to set himself was so absorbing that any other subject seemed scarcely to come within the horizon of his comprehension. He imagined himself selected by no less a person than the Secretary for War, to devote the rest of his life to the accomplishment of a certain undertaking! Practically his mission was to prove by figures, plans, and naval details (unknown to the general public), the complete helplessness of the empire. He bought a yacht and commenced a series of short cruises, lasting over two years, during the whole of which time his wife was his faithful and constant companion. They visited in turn each one of the fortified ports of the country, winding up with a general inspection of every battleship and cruiser within British waters. Then, with huge piles of amassed information before him, he settled down in Norfolk to the framing of his report, still under the impression that the whole country was anxiously awaiting it. His wife remained with him then, listening daily to the news of his progress, and careful never to utter a single word of discouragement or disbelief in the startling facts which he sometimes put before her. The best room in the house, the great library, was stripped perfectly bare and fitted up for his study, and a typist was engaged to copy out the result of his labours in fair form. Lately, the fatal results to England which would follow the public disclosure of her awful helplessness had weighed heavily upon him, and he was beginning to live in the fear of betrayal. The room in which he worked was fitted with iron shutters, and was guarded night and day. He saw no visitors, and was annoyed if any were permitted to enter the house. He met his wife only at dinner time, for which meal he dressed in great state, and at which no one else was ever allowed to be present. He suffered, when they were alone, no word to pass his lips, save with reference to the subject of his labours; it is certain he looked upon himself as the discoverer of terrible secrets. Any remark addressed to him upon other matters utterly failed to make any impression. If he heard it he did not reply. He would simply look puzzled, and, as speedily as possible withdraw. He was sixty years of age, of dignified and kindly appearance; a handsome man still, save that the fire of his blue eyes was quenched, and the firm lines of his commanding mouth had become tremulous. Wolfenden, on his arrival, was met in the hall by his mother, who carried him off at once to have tea in her own room. As he took a low chair opposite to her he was conscious at once of a distinct sense of self-reproach. Although still a handsome woman, the Countess of Deringham was only the wreck of her former brilliant self. Wolfenden, knowing what her life must be, under its altered circumstances, could scarcely wonder at it. The black hair was still only faintly streaked with grey, and her figure was as slim and upright as ever. But there were lines on her forehead and about her eyes, her cheeks were thinner, and even her hands were wasted. He looked at her in silent pity, and although a man of singularly undemonstrative habits, he took her hand in his and pressed it gently. Then he set himself to talk as cheerfully as possible.

“There is nothing much wrong physically with the Admiral, I hope?” he said, calling him by the name they still always gave him. “I saw him at the window as I came round. By the bye, what is that extraordinary looking affair like a sentry-box doing there?”

The Countess sighed.

“That is part of what I have to tell you,” she said. “A sentry-box is exactly what it is, and if you had looked inside you would have seen Dunn or Heggs there keeping guard. In health your father seems as well as ever; mentally, I am afraid that he is worse. I fear that he is getting very bad indeed. That is why I have sent for you, Wolf!”

Wolfenden was seriously and genuinely concerned. Surely his mother had had enough to bear.

“I am very sorry,” he said. “Your letter prepared me a little for this; you must tell me all about it.”

“He has suddenly become the victim,” the Countess said, “of a new and most extraordinary delusion. How it came to pass I cannot exactly tell, but this is what happened. He has a bed, you know, made up in an ante-room, leading from the library, and he sleeps there generally. Early this morning the whole house was awakened by the sound of two revolver shots. I hurried down in my dressing-gown, and found some of the servants already outside the library door, which was locked and barred on the inside. When he heard my voice he let me in. The room was in partial darkness and some disorder. He had a smoking revolver in his hand, and he was muttering to himself so fast that I could not understand a word he said. The chest which holds all his maps and papers had been dragged into the middle of the room, and the iron staple had been twisted, as though with a heavy blow. I saw that the lamp was flickering and a current of air was in the room, and when I looked towards the window I found that the shutters were open and one of the sashes had been lifted. All at once he became coherent.

“‘Send for Morton and Philip Dunn!’ he cried. ‘Let the shrubbery and all the Home Park be searched. Let no one pass out of either of the gates. There have been thieves here!’

“I gave his orders to Morton. ‘Where is Richardson?’ I asked. Richardson was supposed to have been watching outside. Before he could answer Richardson came in through the window. His forehead was bleeding, as though from a blow.

“‘What has happened, Richardson?’ I asked. The man hesitated and looked at your father. Your father answered instead.

“‘I woke up five minutes ago,’ he cried, ‘and found two men here. How they got past Richardson I don’t know, but they were in the room, and they had dragged my chest out there, and had forced a crowbar through the lock! I was just in time; I hit one man in the arm and he fired back. Then they bolted right past Richardson. They must have nearly knocked you down. You must have been asleep, you idiot,’ he cried, ‘or you could have stopped them!’

“I turned to Richardson; he did not say a word, but he looked at me meaningly. The Admiral was examining his chest, so I drew Richardson on one side.

“‘Is this true, Richardson?’ I asked. The man shook his head.

“‘No, your ladyship,’ he said bluntly, ‘it ain’t; there’s no two men been here at all! The master dragged the chest out himself; I heard him doing it, and I saw the light, so I left my box and stepped into the room to see what was wrong. Directly he saw me he yelled out and let fly at me with his revolver! It’s a wonder I’m alive, for one of the bullets grazed my temple!’

“Then he went on to say that he would like to leave, that no wages were good enough to be shot at, and plainly hinted that he thought your father ought to be locked up. I talked him over, and then got the Admiral to go back to bed. We had the place searched as a matter of form, but of course there was no sign of anybody. He had imagined the whole thing! It is a mercy that he did not kill Richardson!”

“This is very serious,” Wolfenden said gravely. “What about his revolver?”

“I managed to secure that,” the Countess said. “It is locked up in my drawer, but I am afraid that he may ask for it at any moment.”

“We can make that all right,” Wolfenden said; “I know where there are some blank cartridges in the gun-room, and I will reload the revolver with them. By the bye, what does Blatherwick say about all this?”

“He is almost as worried as I am, poor little man,” Lady Deringham said. “I am afraid every day that he will give it up and leave. We are paying him five hundred a year, but it must be miserable work for him. It is really almost amusing, though, to see how terrified he is at your father. He positively shakes when he speaks to him.”

“What does he have to do?” Wolfenden asked.

“Oh, draw maps and make calculations and copy all sorts of things. You see it is wasted and purposeless work, that is what makes it so hard for the poor man.”

“You are quite sure, I suppose,” Wolfenden asked, after a moment’s hesitation, “that it is all wasted work?”

“Absolutely,” the Countess declared. “Mr. Blatherwick brings me, sometimes in despair, sheets upon which he has been engaged for days. They are all just a hopeless tangle of figures and wild calculations! Nobody could possibly make anything coherent out of them.”

“I wonder,” Wolfenden suggested thoughtfully, “whether it would be a good idea to get Denvers, the secretary, to write and ask him not to go on with the work for the present. He could easily make some excuse—say that it was attracting attention which they desired to avoid, or something of that sort! Denvers is a good fellow, and he and the Admiral were great friends once, weren’t they?”

The Countess shook her head.

“I am afraid that would not do at all,” she said. “Besides, out of pure good nature, of course, Denvers has already encouraged him. Only last week he wrote him a friendly letter hoping that he was getting on, and telling him how interested every one in the War Office was to hear about his work. He has known about it all the time, you see. Then, too, if the occupation were taken from your father, I am afraid he would break down altogether.”

“Of course there is that to be feared,” Wolfenden admitted. “I wonder what put this new delusion into his head? Does he suspect any one in particular?”

The Countess shook her head.

“I do not think so; of course it was Miss Merton who started it. He quite believes that she took copies of all the work she did here, but he was so pleased with himself at the idea of having found her out, that he has troubled very little about it. He seems to think that she had not reached the most important part of his work, and he is copying that himself now by hand.”

“But outside the house has he no suspicions at all?”

“Not that I know of; not any definite suspicion. He was talking last night of Duchesne, the great spy and adventurer, in a rambling sort of way. ‘Duchesne would be the man to get hold of my work if he knew of it,’ he kept on saying. ‘But none must know of it! The newspapers must be quiet! It is a terrible danger!’ He talked like that for some time. No, I do not think that he suspects anybody. It is more a general uneasiness.”

“Poor old chap!” Wolfenden said softly. “What does Dr. Whitlett think of him? Has he seen him lately? I wonder if there is any chance of his getting over it?”

“None at all,” she answered. “Dr. Whitlett is quite frank; he will never recover what he has lost—he will probably lose more. But come, there is the dressing bell. You will see him for yourself at dinner. Whatever you do don’t be late—he hates any one to be a minute behind time.”

CHAPTER XIV

THE TEMPTING OF MR. BLATHERWICK

Wolfenden was careful to reach the hall before the dinner gong had sounded. His father greeted him warmly, and Wolfenden was surprised to see so little outward change in him. He was carefully dressed, well groomed in every respect, and he wore a delicate orchid in his button-hole.

During dinner he discussed the little round of London life and its various social events with perfect sanity, and permitted himself his usual good-natured grumble at Wolfenden for his dilatoriness in the choice of a profession.

He did not once refer to the subject of his own weakness until dessert had been served, when he passed the claret to Wolfenden without filling his own glass.

“You will excuse my not joining you,” he said to his son, “but I have still three or four hours’ writing to do, and such work as mine requires a very clear head—you can understand that, I daresay.”

Wolfenden assented in silence. For the first time, perhaps, he fully realised the ethical pity of seeing a man so distinguished the victim of a hopeless and incurable mania. He watched him sitting at the head of his table, courteous, gentle, dignified; noted too the air of intellectual abstraction which followed upon his last speech, and in which he seemed to dwell for the rest of the time during which they sat together. Instinctively he knew what disillusionment must mean for him. Sooner anything than that. It must never be. Never! he repeated firmly to himself as he smoked a solitary cigar later on in the empty smoking-room. Whatever happens he must be saved from that. There was a knock at the door, and in response to his invitation to enter, Mr. Blatherwick came in. Wolfenden, who was in the humour to prefer any one’s society to his own, greeted him pleasantly, and wheeled up an easy chair opposite to his own.

“Come to have a smoke, Blatherwick?” he said. “That’s right. Try one of these cigars; the governor’s are all right, but they are in such shocking condition.”

Mr. Blatherwick accepted one with some hesitation, and puffed slowly at it with an air of great deliberation. He was a young man of mild demeanour and deportment, and clerical aspirations. He wore thick spectacles, and suffered from chronic biliousness.

“I am much obliged to you, Lord Wolfenden,” he said. “I seldom smoke cigars—it is not good for my sight. An occasional cigarette is all I permit myself.”

Wolfenden groaned inwardly, for his regalias were priceless and not to be replaced; but he said nothing.

“I have taken the liberty, Lord Wolfenden,” Mr. Blatherwick continued, “of bringing for your inspection a letter I received this morning. It is, I presume, intended for a practical joke, and I need not say that I intend to treat it as such. At the same time as you were in the house, I imagined that no—er—harm would ensue if I ventured to ask for your opinion.”

He handed an open letter to Wolfenden, who took it and read it through. It was dated “—— London,” and bore the postmark of the previous day.

“Mr. Arnold Blatherwick.

“Dear Sir,—The writer of this letter is prepared to offer you one thousand pounds in return for a certain service which you are in a position to perform. The details of that service can only be explained to you in a personal interview, but broadly speaking it is as follows:—

“You are engaged as private secretary to the Earl of Deringham, lately an admiral in the British Navy. Your duties, it is presumed, are to copy and revise papers and calculations having reference to the coast defences and navy of Great Britain. The writer is himself engaged upon a somewhat similar task, but not having had the facilities accorded to Lord Deringham, is without one or two important particulars. The service required of you is the supplying of these, and for this you are offered one thousand pounds.

“As a man of honour you may possibly hesitate to at once embrace this offer. You need not! Lord Deringham’s work is practically useless, for it is the work of a lunatic. You yourself, from your intimate association with him, must know that this statement is true. He will never be able to give coherent form to the mass of statistics and information which he has collected. Therefore you do him no harm in supplying these few particulars to one who will be able to make use of them. The sum you are offered is out of all proportion to their value—a few months’ delay and they could easily be acquired by the writer without the expenditure of a single halfpenny. That, however, is not the point.

“I am rich and I have no time to spare. Hence this offer. I take it that you are a man of common sense, and I take it for granted, therefore, that you will not hesitate to accept this offer. Your acquiescence will be assumed if you lunch at the Grand Hotel, Cromer, between one and two, on Thursday following the receipt of this letter. You will then be put in full possession of all the information necessary to the carrying out of the proposals made to you. You are well known to the writer, who will take the liberty of joining you at your table.”

The letter ended thus somewhat abruptly. Wolfenden, who had only glanced it through at first, now re-read it carefully. Then he handed it back to Blatherwick.

“It is a very curious communication,” he said thoughtfully, “a very curious communication indeed. I do not know what to think of it.”

Mr. Blatherwick laid down his cigar with an air of great relief. He would have liked to have thrown it away, but dared not.

“It must surely be intended for a practical joke, Lord Wolfenden,” he said. “Either that, or my correspondent has been ludicrously misinformed.”

“You do not consider, then, that my father’s work is of any value at all?” Wolfenden asked.

Mr. Blatherwick coughed apologetically, and watched the extinction of the cigar by his side with obvious satisfaction.

“You would, I am sure, prefer,” he said, “that I gave you a perfectly straightforward answer to that question. I—er—cannot conceive that the work upon which his lordship and I are engaged can be of the slightest interest or use to anybody. I can assure you, Lord Wolfenden, that my brain at times reels—positively reels—from the extraordinary nature of the manuscripts which your father has passed on to me to copy. It is not that they are merely technical, they are absolutely and entirely meaningless. You ask me for my opinion, Lord Wolfenden, and I conceive it to be my duty to answer you honestly. I am quite sure that his lordship is not in a fit state of mind to undertake any serious work.”

“The person who wrote that letter,” Wolfenden remarked, “thought otherwise.”

“The person who wrote that letter,” Mr. Blatherwick retorted quickly, “if indeed it was written in good faith, is scarcely likely to know so much about his lordship’s condition of mind as I, who have spent the greater portion of every day for three months with him.”

“Do you consider that my father is getting worse, Mr. Blatherwick?” Wolfenden asked.

“A week ago,” Mr. Blatherwick said, “I should have replied that his lordship’s state of mind was exactly the same as when I first came here. But there has been a change for the worse during the last week. It commenced with his sudden, and I am bound to say, unfounded suspicions of Miss Merton, whom I believe to be a most estimable and worthy young lady.”

Mr. Blatherwick paused, and appeared to be troubled with a slight cough. The smile, which Wolfenden was not altogether able to conceal, seemed somewhat to increase his embarrassment.

“The extraordinary occurrence of last night, which her ladyship has probably detailed to you,” Mr. Blatherwick continued, “was the next development of what, I fear, we can only regard as downright insanity. I regret having to speak so plainly, but I am afraid that any milder phrase would be inapplicable.”

“I am very sorry to hear this,” Wolfenden remarked gravely.

“Under the circumstances,” Mr. Blatherwick said, picking up his cigar which was now extinct, and immediately laying it down again, “I trust that you and Lady Deringham will excuse my not giving the customary notice of my desire to leave. It is of course impossible for me to continue to draw a—er—a stipend such as I am in receipt of for services so ludicrously inadequate.”

“Lady Deringham will be sorry to have you go,” Wolfenden said. “Couldn’t you put up with it a little longer?”

“I would much prefer to leave,” Mr. Blatherwick said decidedly. “I am not physically strong, and I must confess that his lordship’s attitude at times positively alarms me. I fear that there is no doubt that he committed an unprovoked assault last night upon that unfortunate keeper. There is—er—no telling whom he might select for his next victim. If quite convenient, Lord Wolfenden, I should like to leave to-morrow by an early train.”

“Oh! you can’t go so soon as that,” Wolfenden said. “How about this letter?”

“You can take any steps you think proper with regard to it,” Mr. Blatherwick answered nervously. “Personally, I have nothing to do with it. I thought of going to spend a week with an aunt of mine in Cornwall, and I should like to leave by the early train to-morrow.”

Wolfenden could scarcely keep from laughing, although he was a little annoyed.

“Look here, Blatherwick,” he said, “you must help me a little before you go, there’s a good fellow. I don’t doubt for a moment what you say about the poor old governor’s condition of mind; but at the same time it’s rather an odd thing, isn’t it, that his own sudden fear of having his work stolen is followed up by the receipt of this letter to you? There is some one, at any rate, who places a very high value upon his manuscripts. I must say that I should like to know whom that letter came from.”

“I can assure you,” Mr. Blatherwick said, “that I have not the faintest idea.”

“Of course you haven’t,” Wolfenden assented, a little impatiently. “But don’t you see how easy it will be for us to find out? You must go to the Grand Hotel on Thursday for lunch, and meet this mysterious person.”

“I would very much rather not,” Mr. Blatherwick declared promptly. “I should feel exceedingly uncomfortable; I should not like it at all!”

“Look here,” Wolfenden said persuasively “I must find out who wrote that letter, and can only do so with your help. You need only be there, I will come up directly I have marked the man who comes to your table. Your presence is all that is required; and I shall take it as a favour if you will allow me to make you a present of a fifty-pound note.”

Mr. Blatherwick flushed a little and hesitated. He had brothers and sisters, whose bringing up was a terrible strain upon the slim purse of his father, a country clergyman, and a great deal could be done with fifty pounds. It was against his conscience as well as his inclinations to remain in a post where his duties were a farce, but this was different.

He sighed.

“You are very generous, Lord Wolfenden,” he said. “I will stay until after Thursday.”

“There’s a good fellow,” Wolfenden said, much relieved. “Have another cigar?”

Mr. Blatherwick rose hastily, and shook his head. “You must excuse me, if you please,” he said. “I will not smoke any more. I think if you will not mind——”

Wolfenden turned to the window and held up his hand.

“Listen!” he said. “Is that a carriage at this time of night?”

A carriage it certainly was, passing by the window. In a moment they heard it draw up at the front door, and some one alighted.

“Odd time for callers,” Wolfenden remarked.