Trent laughed heartily. The situation began to appeal to him. There was humour in it which he alone could appreciate.

"Does he expect me to send you away?" he asked.

"That's a cert!" Miss Montressor affirmed. "The old woman's been playing the respectable all day, turning up the whites of her eyes at me because I did a high kick in the hall, and groaning at Flossie because she had a few brandies; ain't that so, Flossie?"

The young lady with yellow hair confirmed the statement with much dignity.

"I had a toothache," she said, "and Mrs. Da Souza, or whatever the old cat calls herself, was most rude. I reckon myself as respectable as she is any day, dragging that yellow-faced daughter of hers about with her and throwing her at men's heads."

Miss Montressor, who had stopped to pick a flower, rejoined them.

"I say, General," she remarked, "fair's fair, and a promise is a promise. We didn't come down here to be made fools of by a fat old Jewess. You won't send us away because of the old wretch?"

"I promise," said Trent, "that when she goes you go, and not before. Is that sufficient?"

"Right oh!" the young lady declared cheerfully. "Now you go and prink up for dinner. We're ready, Flossie and I. The little Jew girl's got a new dress—black covered with sequins. It makes her look yellower than ever. There goes the bell, and we're both as hungry as hunters. Look sharp!"

Trent entered the house. Da Souza met him in the hall, sleek, curly, and resplendent in a black dinner-suit. The years had dealt lightly with him, or else the climate of England was kinder to his yellow skin than the moist heat of the Gold Coast. He greeted Trent with a heartiness which was partly tentative, partly boisterous.

"Back from the coining of the shekels, my dear friend," he exclaimed. "Back from the spoiling of the Egyptians, eh? How was money to-day?"

"An eighth easier," Trent answered, ascending the stairs.

Da Souza fidgeted about with the banisters, and finally followed him.

"There was just a word," he remarked, "a little word I wanted with you."

"Come and talk while I wash," Trent said shortly. "Dinner's on, and I'm hungry."

"Certainly, certainly," Da Souza murmured, closing the door behind them as they entered the lavatory. "It is concerning these young ladies."

"What! Miss Montressor and her friend?" Trent remarked thrusting his head into the cold water. "Phew!"

"Exactly! Two very charming young ladies, my dear friend, very charming indeed, but a little—don't you fancy just a little fast!"

"Hadn't noticed it," Trent answered, drying himself. "What about it?"

Da Souza tugged at his little black imperial, and moved uneasily about.

"We—er—men of the world, my dear Trent, we need not be so particular, eh?—but the ladies—the ladies are so observant."

"What ladies?" Trent asked coolly.

"It is my wife who has been talking to me," Da Souza continued. "You see, Julie is so young—our dear daughter she is but a child; and, as my wife says, we cannot be too particular, too careful, eh; you understand!"

"You want them to go? Is that it?"

Da Souza spread out his hands—an old trick, only now the palms were white and the diamonds real.

"For myself," he declared, "I find them charming. It is my wife who says to me, 'Hiram, those young persons, they are not fit company for our dear, innocent Julie! You shall speak to Mr. Trent. He will understand!' Eh?"

Trent had finished his toilet and stood, the hairbrushes still in his hands, looking at Da Souza's anxious face with a queer smile upon his lips.

"Yes, I understand, Da Souza," he said. "No doubt you are right, you cannot be too careful. You do well to be particular."

Da Souza winced. He was about to speak, but Trent interrupted him.

"Well, I'll tell you this, and you can let the missis know, my fond father. They leave to-morrow. Is that good enough?"

Da Souza caught at his host's hand, but Trent snatched it away.

"My dear—my noble—"

"Here, shut up and don't paw me," Trent interrupted. "Mind, not a word of this to any one but your wife; the girls don't know they're going themselves yet."

They entered the dining-room, where every one else was already assembled. Mrs. Da Souza, a Jewess portly and typical, resplendent in black satin and many gold chains and bangles, occupied the seat of honour, and by her side was a little brown girl, with dark, timid eyes and dusky complexion, pitiably over-dressed but with a certain elf-like beauty, which it was hard to believe that she could ever have inherited. Miss Montressor and her friend sat on either side of their host—an arrangement which Mrs. Da Souza lamented, but found herself powerless to prevent, and her husband took the vacant place. Dinner was served, and with the opening of the champagne, which was not long delayed, tongues were loosened.

"It was very hot in the City to-day," Mrs. Da Souza remarked to her host. "Dear Julie was saying what a shame it seemed that you should be there and we should be enjoying your beautiful gardens. She is so thoughtful, so sympathetic! Dear girl!"

"Very kind of your daughter," Trent answered, looking directly at her and rather inclined to pity her obvious shyness. "Come, drink up, Da Souza, drink up, girls! I've had a hard day and I want to forget for a bit that there's any such thing as work."

Miss Montressor raised her glass and winked at her host.

"It don't take much drinking, this, General," she remarked, cheerily draining her glass! "Different to the 'pop' they give us down at the 'Star,' eh, Flossie? Good old gooseberry I call that!"

"Da Souza, look after Miss Flossie," Trent said. "Why don't you fill her glass? That's right!"

"Hiram!"

Da Souza removed his hand from the back of his neighbour's chair and endeavoured to look unconscious. The girl tittered—Mrs. Da Souza was severely dignified. Trent watched them all, half in amusement, half in disgust. What a pandemonium! It was time indeed for him to get rid of them all. From where he sat he could see across the lawn into the little pine plantation. It was still light-if she could look in at the open window what would she think? His cheeks burned, and he thrust the hand which was seeking his under the table savagely away. And then an idea flashed in upon him—a magnificent, irresistible idea. He drank off a glass of champagne and laughed loud and long at one of his neighbour's silly sayings. It was a glorious joke! The more he thought of it, the more he liked it. He called for more champagne, and all, save the little brown girl, greeted the magnum which presently appeared with cheers. Even Mrs. Da Souza unbent a little towards the young women against whom she had declared war. Faces were flushed and voices grew a little thick. Da Souza's arm unchidden sought once more the back of his neighbour's chair, Miss Montressor's eyes did their utmost to win a tender glance from their lavish host. Suddenly Trent rose to his feet. He held a glass high over his head. His face was curiously unmoved, but his lips were parted in an enigmatic smile.

"A toast, my friends!" he cried. "Fill up, the lot of you! Come! To our next meeting! May fortune soon smile again, and may I have another home before long as worthy a resting-place for you as this!"

Bewilderment reigned. No one offered to drink the toast. It was Miss Montressor who asked the question which was on every one's lips.

"What's up?" she exclaimed. "What's the matter with our next meeting here to-morrow night, and what's all that rot about your next home and fortune?"

Trent looked at them all in well-simulated amazement.

"Lord!" he exclaimed, "you don't know—none of you! I thought Da Souza would have told you the news!"

"What news?" Da Souza cried, his beady eyes protuberant, and his glass arrested half-way to his mouth.

"What are you talking about, my friend?"

Trent set down his glass.

"My friends," he said unsteadily, "let me explain to you, as shortly as I can, what an uncertain position is that of a great financier."

Da Souza leaned across the table. His face was livid, and the corners of his eyes were bloodshot.

"I thought there was something up," he muttered. "You would not have me come into the City this morning. D—n it, you don't mean that you—"

"I'm bust!" Trent said roughly. "Is that plain enough? I've been bulling on West Australians, and they boomed and this afternoon the Government decided not to back us at Bekwando, and the mines are to be shut down. Tell you all about it if you like."

No one wanted to hear all about it. They shrunk from him as though he were a robber. Only the little brown girl was sorry, and she looked at him with dark, soft eyes.

"I've given a bill of sale here," Trent continued. "They'll be round to-morrow. Better pack to-night. These valuers are such robbers. Come, another bottle! It'll all have to be sold. We'll make a night of it."

Mrs. Da Souza rose and swept from the room—Da Souza had fallen forward with his head upon his hands. He was only half sober, but the shock was working like madness in his brain. The two girls, after whispering together for a moment, rose and followed Mrs. Da Souza. Trent stole from his place and out into the garden. With footsteps which were steady enough now he crossed the velvety lawns, and plunged into the shrubbery. Then he began to laugh softly as he walked. They were all duped! They had accepted his story without the slightest question. He leaned over the gate which led into the little plantation, and he was suddenly grave and silent. A night-wind was blowing fragrant and cool. The dark boughs of the trees waved to and fro against the background of deep blue sky. The lime leaves rustled softly, the perfume of roses came floating across from the flower-gardens. Trent stood quite still, listening and thinking.

"God! what a beast I am!" he muttered. "It was there she sat! I'm not fit to breathe the same air."

He looked back towards the house. The figures of the two girls, with Da Souza standing now between them, were silhouetted against the window. His face grew dark and fierce.

"Faugh!" he exclaimed, "what a kennel I have made of my house! What a low-down thing I have begun to make of life! Yet—I was a beggar—and I am a millionaire. Is it harder to change oneself? To-morrow"—he looked hard at the place where she had sat—"to-morrow I will ask her!"

On his way back to the house a little cloaked figure stepped out from behind a shrub. He looked at her in amazement. It was the little brown girl, and her eyes were wet with tears.

"Listen," she said quickly. "I have been waiting to speak to you! I want to say goodbye and to thank you. I am very, very sorry, and I hope that some day very soon you will make some more money and be happy again."

Her lips were quivering. A single glance into her face assured him of her honesty. He took the hand which she held out and pressed her fingers.

"Little Julie," he said, "you are a brick. Don't you bother about me. It isn't quite so bad as I made out—only don't tell your mother that."

"I'm very glad," she murmured. "I think that it is hateful of them all to rush away, and I made up my mind to say goodbye however angry it made them. Let me go now, please. I want to get back before mamma misses me."

He passed his arm around her tiny waist. She looked at him with frightened eyes.

"Please let me go," she murmured.

He kissed her lips, and a moment afterwards vaguely repented it. She buried her face in her hands and ran away sobbing. Trent lit a cigar and sat down upon a garden seat.

"It's a queer thing," he said reflectingly. "The girl's been thrown repeatedly at my head for a week and I might have kissed her at any moment, before her father and mother if I had liked, and they'd have thanked me. Now I've done it I'm sorry. She looked prettier than I've ever seen her too—and she's the only decent one of the lot. Lord! what a hubbub there'll be in the morning!"

The stars came out and the moon rose, and still Scarlett Trent lingered in the scented darkness. He was a man of limited imagination and little given to superstitions. Yet that night there came to him a presentiment. He felt that he was on the threshold of great events. Something new in life was looming up before him. He had cut himself adrift from the old—it was a very wonderful and a very beautiful figure which was beckoning him to follow in other paths. The triumph of the earlier part of the day seemed to lie far back in a misty and unimportant past. There was a new world and a greater, if fortune willed that he should enter it.



CHAPTER XI

Trent was awakened next morning by the sound of carriage wheels in the drive below. He rang his bell at once. After a few moments' delay it was answered by one of his two men-servants.

"Whose carriage is that in the drive?" he asked. "It is a fly for Mr. Da Souza, sir."

"What! has he gone?" Trent exclaimed.

"Yes, sir, he and Mrs. Da Souza and the young lady."

"And Miss Montressor and her friend?"

"They shared the fly, sir. The luggage all went down in one of the carts."

Trent laughed outright, half scornfully, half in amusement.

"Listen, Mason," he said, as the sound of wheels died away. "If any of those people come back again they are not to be admitted—do you hear? if they bring their luggage you are not to take it in. If they come themselves you are not to allow them to enter the house. You understand that?"

"Yes, sir.

"Very good! Now prepare my bath at once, and tell the cook, breakfast in half an hour. Let her know that I am hungry. Breakfast for one, mind! Those fools who have just left will get a morning paper at the station and they may come back. Be on the look-out for them and let the other servants know. Better have the lodge gate locked."

"Very good, sir."

The man who had been lamenting the loss of an easy situation and possibly even a month's wages, hastened to spread more reassuring news in the lower regions. It was a practical joke of the governor's—very likely a ruse to get rid of guests who had certainly been behaving as though the Lodge was their permanent home. There was a chorus of thanksgiving. Groves, the butler, who read the money articles in the Standard every morning with solemn interest and who was suspected of investments, announced that from what he could make out the governor must have landed a tidy little lump yesterday. Whereupon the cook set to work to prepare a breakfast worthy of the occasion.

Trent had awakened with a keen sense of anticipated pleasure. A new and delightful interest had entered into his life. It is true that, at times, it needed all his strength of mind to keep his thoughts from wandering back into that unprofitable and most distasteful past—in the middle of the night even, he had woke up suddenly with an old man's cry in his ears—or was it the whispering of the night-wind in the tall elms? But he was not of an imaginative nature. He felt himself strong enough to set his heel wholly upon all those memories. If he had not erred on the side of generosity, he had at least played the game fairly. Monty, if he had lived, could only have been a disappointment and a humiliation. The picture was hers—of that he had no doubt! Even then he was not sure that Monty was her father. In any case she would never know. He recognised no obligation on his part to broach the subject. The man had done his best to cut himself altogether adrift from his former life. His reasons doubtless had been sufficient. It was not necessary to pry into them—it might even be unkindness. The picture, which no man save himself had ever seen, was the only possible link between the past and the present—between Scarlett Trent and his drunken old partner, starved and fever-stricken, making their desperate effort for wealth in unknown Africa, and the millionaire of to-day. The picture remained his dearest possession—but, save his own, no other eyes had ever beheld it.

He dressed with more care than usual, and much less satisfaction. He was a man who rather prided himself upon neglecting his appearance, and, so far as the cut and pattern of his clothes went, he usually suggested the artisan out for a holiday. To-day for the first time he regarded his toilet with critical and disparaging eyes. He found the pattern of his tweed suit too large, and the colour too pronounced, his collars were old-fashioned and his ties hideous. It was altogether a new experience with him, this self-dissatisfaction and sensitiveness to criticism, which at any other time he would have regarded with a sort of insolent indifference. He remembered his walk westward yesterday with a shudder, as though indeed it had been a sort of nightmare, and wondered whether she too had regarded him with the eyes of those loungers on the pavement—whether she too was one of those who looked for a man to conform to the one arbitrary and universal type. Finally he tied his necktie with a curse, and went down to breakfast with little of his good-humour left.

The fresh air sweeping in through the long, open windows, the glancing sunlight and the sense of freedom, for which the absence of his guests was certainly responsible, soon restored his spirits. Blest with an excellent morning appetite—the delightful heritage of a clean life—he enjoyed his breakfast and thoroughly appreciated his cook's efforts. If he needed a sauce, Fate bestowed one upon him, for he was scarcely midway through his meal before a loud ringing at the lodge gates proved the accuracy of his conjectures. Mr. Da Souza had purchased a morning paper at the junction, and their host's perfidy had become apparent. Obviously they had decided to treat the whole matter as a practical joke and to brave it out, for outside the gates in an open fly were the whole party. They had returned, only to find that according to Trent's orders the gates were closed upon them.

Trent moved his seat to where he could have a better view, and continued his breakfast. The party in the cab looked hot, and tumbled, and cross. Da Souza was on his feet arguing with the lodge-keeper—the women seemed to be listening anxiously. Trent turned to the servant who was waiting upon him.

"Send word down," he directed, "that I will see Mr. Da Souza alone. No one else is to be allowed to enter. Pass me the toast before you go."

Da Souza entered presently, apologetic and abject, prepared at the same time to extenuate and deny. Trent continued his breakfast coolly.

"My dear friend!" Da Souza exclaimed, depositing his silk hat upon the table, "it is a very excellent joke of yours. You see, we have entered into the spirit of it—oh yes, we have done so indeed! We have taken a little drive before breakfast, but we have returned. You knew, of course, that we would not dream of leaving you in such a manner. Do you not think, my dear friend, that the joke was carried now far enough? The ladies are hungry; will you send word to the lodge-keeper that he may open the gate?"

Trent helped himself to coffee, and leaned back in his chair, stirring it thoughtfully.

"You are right, Da Souza," he said. "It is an excellent joke. The cream of it is too that I am in earnest; neither you nor any of those ladies whom I see out there will sit at my table again."

"You are not in earnest! You do not mean it!"

"I can assure you," Trent replied grinning, "that I do!"

"But do you mean," Da Souza spluttered, "that we are to go like this—to be turned out—the laughing-stock of your servants, after we have come back too, all the way?—oh, it is nonsense! It's not to be endured!"

"You can go to the devil!" Trent answered coolly. "There is not one of you whom I care a fig to see again. You thought that I was ruined, and you scudded like rats from a sinking ship. Well, I found you out, and a jolly good thing too. All I have to say is now, be off, and the quicker the better!"

Then Da Souza cringed no longer, and there shot from his black eyes the venomous twinkle of the serpent whose fangs are out. He leaned over the table, and dropped his voice.

"I speak," he said, "for my wife, my daughter, and myself, and I assure you that we decline to go!"



CHAPTER XII

Trent rose up with flashing eyes. Da Souza shrank back from his outstretched hands. The two men stood facing one another. Da Souza was afraid, but the ugly look of determination remained upon his white face. Trent felt dimly that there was something which must be explained between them. There had been hints of this sort before from Da Souza. It was time the whole thing was cleared up. The lion was ready to throw aside the jackal.

"I give you thirty seconds," he said, "to clear out. If you haven't come to your senses then, you'll be sorry for it."

"Thirty seconds is not long enough," Da Souza answered, "for me to tell you why I decline to go. Better listen to me quietly, my friend. It will be best for you. Afterwards you will admit it."

"Go ahead," Trent said, "I'm anxious to hear what you've got to say. Only look here! I'm a bit short-tempered this morning, and I shouldn't advise you to play with your words!"

"This is no play at all," Da Souza remarked, with a sneer. "I ask you to remember, my friend, our first meeting."

Trent nodded.

"Never likely to forget it," he answered.

"I came down from Elmina to deal with you," Da Souza continued. "I had made money trading in Ashanti for palm-oil and mahogany. I had money to invest—and you needed it. You had land, a concession to work gold-mines, and build a road to the coast. It was speculative, but we did business. I came with you to England. I found more money."

"You made your fortune," Trent said drily. "I had to have the money, and you ground a share out of me which is worth a quarter of a million to you!"

"Perhaps it is," Da Souza answered, "perhaps it is not. Perhaps it is worth nothing at all. Perhaps, instead of being a millionaire, you yourself are a swindler and an adventurer!"

"If you don't speak out in half a moment," Trent said in a low tone, "I'll twist the tongue out of your head."

"I am speaking out," Da Souza answered. "It is an ugly thing I have to say, but you must control yourself."

The little black eyes were like the eyes of a snake. He was showing his teeth. He forgot to be afraid.

"You had a partner," he said. "The concession was made out to him together with yourself."

"He died," Trent answered shortly. "I took over the lot by arrangement."

"A very nice arrangement," Da Souza drawled with a devilish smile. "He is old and weak. You were with him up at Bekwando where there are no white men—no one to watch you. You gave him brandy to drink—you watch the fever come, and you write on the concession if one should die all goes to the survivor. And you gave him brandy in the bush where the fever is, and—behold you return alone! When people know this they will say, 'Oh yes, it is the way millionaires are made.'"

He stopped, out of breath, for the veins were standing out upon his forehead, and he remembered what the English doctor at Cape Coast Castle had told him. So he was silent for a moment, wiping the perspiration away and struggling against the fear which was turning the blood to ice in his veins. For Trent's face was not pleasant to look upon.

"Anything else?"

Da Souza pulled himself together. "Yes," he said; "what I have said is as nothing. It is scandalous, and it would make talk, but it is nothing. There is something else."

"Well?"

"You had a partner whom you deserted."

"It is a lie! I carried him on my back for twenty hours with a pack of yelling niggers behind. We were lost, and I myself was nigh upon a dead man. Who would have cumbered himself with a corpse? Curse you and your vile hints, you mongrel, you hanger-on, you scurrilous beast! Out, and spread your stories, before my fingers get on your throat! Out!"

Da Souza slunk away before the fire in Trent's eyes, but he had no idea of going. He stood in safety near the door, and as he leaned forward, speaking now in a hoarse whisper, he reminded Trent momentarily of one of those hideous fetish gods in the sacred grove at Bekwando.

"Your partner was no corpse when you left him," he hissed out. "You were a fool and a bungler not to make sure of it. The natives from Bekwando found him and carried him bound to the King, and your English explorer, Captain Francis, rescued him. He's alive now!"

Trent stood for a moment like a man turned to stone. Alive! Monty alive! The impossibility of the thing came like a flash of relief to him. The man was surely on the threshold of death when he had left him, and the age of miracles was past.

"You're talking like a fool, Da Souza. Do you mean to take me in with an old woman's story like that?"

"There's no old woman's story about what I've told you," Da Souza snarled. "The man's alive and I can prove it a dozen times over. You were a fool and a bungler."

Trent thought of the night when he had crept back into the bush and had found no trace of Monty, and gradually there rose up before him a lurid possibility Da Souza's story was true. The very thought of it worked like madness in his brains. When he spoke he strove hard to steady his voice, and even to himself it sounded like the voice of one speaking a long way off.

"Supposing that this were true," he said, "what is he doing all this time? Why does he not come and claim his share?"

Da Souza hesitated. He would have liked to have invented another reason, but it was not safe. The truth was best.

"He is half-witted and has lost his memory. He is working now at one of the Basle mission-places near Attra."

"And why have you not told me this before?"

Da Souza shrugged his shoulders. "It was not necessary," he said. "Our interests were the same, it was better for you not to know."

"He remembers nothing, then?"

Da Souza hesitated. "Oom Sam," he said, "my half-brother, keeps an eye on him. Sometimes he gets restless, he talks, but what matter? He has no money. Soon he must die. He is getting an old man!"

"I shall send for him," Trent said slowly. "He shall have his share!"

It was the one fear which had kept Da Souza silent. The muscles of his face twitched, and his finger-nails were buried in the flesh of his fat, white hands. Side by side he had worked with Trent for years without being able to form any certain estimate of the man or his character. Many a time he had asked himself what Trent would do if he knew—only the fear of his complete ignorance of the man had kept him silent all these years. Now the crisis had come! He had spoken! It might mean ruin.

"Send for him?" Da Souza said. "Why? His memory has gone—save for occasional fits of passion in which he raves at you. What would people say?—that you tried to kill him with brandy, that the clause in the concession was a direct incentive for you to get rid of him, and you left him in the bush only a few miles from Buckomari to be seized by the natives. Besides, how can you pay him half? I know pretty well how you stand. On paper, beyond doubt you are a millionaire; but what if all claims were suddenly presented against you to be paid in sovereigns? I tell you this, my friend, Mr. Scarlett Trent, and I am a man of experience and I know. To-day in the City it is true that you could raise a million pounds in cash, but let me whisper a word, one little word, and you would be hard pressed to raise a thousand. It is true there is the Syndicate, that great scheme of yours yesterday from which you were so careful to exclude me—you are to get great monies from them in cash. Bah! don't you see that Monty's existence breaks up that Syndicate—smashes it into tiny atoms, for you have sold what was not yours to sell, and they do not pay for that, eh? They call it fraud!"

He paused, out of breath, and Trent remained silent; he knew very well that he was face to face with a great crisis. Of all things this was the most fatal which could have happened to him. Monty alive! He remembered the old man's passionate cry for life, for pleasure, to taste once more, for however short a time, the joys of wealth. Monty alive, penniless, half-witted, the servant of a few ill-paid missionaries, toiling all day for a living, perhaps fishing with the natives or digging, a slave still, without hope or understanding, with the end of his days well in view! Surely it were better to risk all things, to have him back at any cost? Then a thought more terrible yet than any rose up before him like a spectre, there was a sudden catch at his heart-strings, he was cold with fear. What would she think of the man who deserted his partner, an old man, while life was yet in him, and safety close at hand? Was it possible that he could ever escape the everlasting stigma of cowardice—ay, and before him in great red letters he saw written in the air that fatal clause in the agreement, to which she and all others would point with bitter scorn, indubitable, overwhelming evidence against him. He gasped for breath and walked restlessly up and down the room. Other thoughts came crowding in upon him. He was conscious of a new element in himself. The last few years had left their mark upon him. With the handling of great sums of money and the acquisition of wealth had grown something of the financier's fever. He had become a power, solidly and steadfastly he had hewn his way into a little circle whose fascination had begun to tell in his blood. Was he to fall without a struggle from amongst the high places, to be stripped of his wealth, shunned as a man who was morally, if not in fact, a murderer, to be looked upon with never-ending scorn by the woman whose picture for years had been a religion to him, and whose appearance only a few hours ago had been the most inspiring thing which had entered into his life? He looked across the lawn into the pine grove with steadfast eyes and knitted brows, and Da Souza watched him, ghastly and nervous. At least he must have time to decide!

"If you send for him," Da Souza said slowly, "you will be absolutely ruined. It will be a triumph for those whom you have made jealous, who have measured their wits with yours and gone under. Oh! but the newspapers will enjoy it—that is very certain. Our latest millionaire, his rise and fall! Cannot you see it in the placards? And for what? To give wealth to an old man long past the enjoyment of it-ay, imbecile already! You will not be a madman, Trent?"

Trent winced perceptibly. Da Souza saw it and rejoiced. There was another awkward silence. Trent lit a cigar and puffed furiously at it.

"I will think it over, at least," he said in a low tone. "Bring back your wife and daughter, and leave me alone for a while."

"I knew," Da Souza murmured, "that my friend would be reasonable."

"And the young ladies?"

"Send them to—"

"I will send them back to where they came from," Da Souza interrupted blandly.



CHAPTER XIII

It is probable that Mrs. Da Souza, excellent wife and mother though she had proved herself to be, had never admired her husband more than when, followed by the malevolent glances of Miss Montressor and her friend, she, with her daughter and Da Souza, re-entered the gates of the Lodge. The young ladies had announced their intention of sitting in the fly until they were allowed speech with their late host; to which he had replied that they were welcome to sit there until doomsday so long as they remained outside his gates. Mr. Da Souza lingered for a moment behind and laid his finger upon his nose.

"It ain't no use, my dears," he whispered confidentially. "He's fairly got the hump. Between you and me he'd give a bit not to have us, but me and him being old friends—you see, we know a bit about one another."

"Oh, that's it, is it?" Miss Montressor remarked, with a toss of her head. "Well, you and your wife and your little chit of a daughter are welcome to him so far as we are concerned, aren't they, Flossie?"

"Well, I should say so," agreed the young lady, who rather affected Americanisms.

Da Souza stroked his little imperial, and winked solemnly.

"You are young ladies of spirit," he declared. "Now—"

"Hiram!"

"I am coming, my dear," he called over his shoulder. "One word more, my charming young friends! No. 7, Racket's Court, City, is my address. Look in sometime when you're that way, and we'll have a bit of lunch together, and just at present take my advice. Get back to London and write him from there. He is not in a good humour at present."

"We are much obliged, Mr. Da Souza," the young lady answered loftily. "As we have engagements in London this afternoon, we may as well go now—eh, Flossie?"

"Right along," answered the young lady, "I'm with you, but as to writing Mr. Trent, you can tell him from me, Mr. Da Souza, that we want to have nothing more to do with him. A fellow that can treat ladies as he has treated us is no gentleman. You can tell him that. He's an ignorant, common fellow, and for my part I despise him."

"Same here," echoed Miss Montressor, heartily. "We ain't used to associate with such as him!"

"Hiram!"

Mr. Da Souza raised his hat and bowed; the ladies were tolerably gracious and the fly drove off. Whereupon Mr. Da Souza followed his wife and daughter along the drive and caught them up upon the doorstep. With mingled feelings of apprehension and elation he ushered them into the morning-room where Trent was standing looking out of the window with his hands behind him. At their entrance he did not at once turn round. Mr. Da Souza coughed apologetically.

"Here we are, my friend," he remarked. "The ladies are anxious to wish you good morning."

Trent faced them with a sudden gesture of impatience. He seemed on the point of an angry exclamation, when his eyes met Julie Da Souza's. He held his breath for a moment and was silent. Her face was scarlet with shame, and her lips were trembling. For her sake Trent restrained himself.

"Glad to see you back again, Julie," he said, ignoring her mother's outstretched hand and beaming smile of welcome. "Going to be a hot day, I think. You must get out in the hay-field. Order what breakfast you please, Da Souza," he continued on his way to the door; "you must be hungry-after such an early start!"

Mrs. Da Souza sat down heavily and rang the bell.

"He was a little cool," she remarked, "but that was to be expected. Did you observe the notice he took of Julie? Dear child!"

Da Souza rubbed his hands and nodded meaningly. The girl, who, between the two, was miserable enough, sat down with a little sob. Her mother looked at her in amazement.

"My Julie," she exclaimed, "my dear child! You see, Hiram, she is faint! She is overcome!"

The child, she was very little more, broke out at last in speech, passionately, yet with a miserable fore-knowledge of the ineffectiveness of anything she might say.

"It is horrible," she cried, "it is maddening! Why do we do it? Are we paupers or adventurers? Oh! let me go away! I am ashamed to stay in this house!"

Her father, his thumbs in the armholes of his waistcoat and his legs far apart, looked at her in blank and speechless amazement; her mother, with more consideration but equal lack of sympathy, patted her gently on the back of her hand.

"Silly Julie," she murmured, "what is there that is horrible, little one?"

The dark eyes blazed with scorn, the delicately curved lips shook.

"Why, the way we thrust ourselves upon this man is horrible!" she cried. "Can you not see that we are not welcome, that he wishes us gone?"

Da Souza smiled in a superior manner; the smile of a man who, if only he would, could explain all things. He patted his daughter on the head with a touch which was meant to be playful.

"My little one," he said, "you are mistaken! Leave these matters to those who are older and wiser than you. It is but just now that my good friend said to me, 'Da Souza,' he say, 'I will not have you take your little daughter away!' Oh, we shall see! We shall see!"

Julie's tears crept through the fingers closely pressed over her eyes.

"I do not believe it," she sobbed. "He has scarcely looked at me all the time, and I do not want him to. He despises us all—and I don't blame him. It is horrid!"

Mrs. Da Souza, with a smile which was meant to be arch, had something to say, but the arrival of breakfast broke up for a while the conversation. Her husband, whom Nature had blessed with a hearty appetite at all times, was this morning after his triumph almost disposed to be boisterous. He praised the cooking, chaffed the servants to their infinite disgust, and continually urged his wife and daughter to keep pace with him in his onslaught upon the various dishes which were placed before him. Before the meal was over Julie had escaped from the table crying softly. Mr. Da Souza's face darkened as he looked up at the sound of her movement, only to see her skirt vanishing through the door.

"Shall you have trouble with her, my dear?" he asked his wife anxiously.

That estimable lady shook her head with a placid smile. "Julie is so sensitive," she muttered, "but she is not disobedient. When the time comes I can make her mind."

"But the time has come!" Da Souza exclaimed. "It is here now, and Julie is sulky. She will have red eyes and she is not gay! She will not attract him. You must speak with her, my dear."

"I will go now—this instant," she answered, rising. "But, Hiram, there is one thing I would much like to know."

"Ugh! You women! You are always like that! There is so much that you want to know!"

"Most women, Hiram—not me! Do I ever seek to know your secrets? But this time—yes, it would be wiser to tell me a little!"

"Well?"

"This Mr. Trent, he asked us here, but it is plain that our company is not pleasant to him. He does his best to get rid of us—he succeeds—he plans that we shall not return. You see him alone and all that is altered. His little scheme has been in vain. We remain! He does not look at our Julie. He speaks of marriage with contempt. Yet you say he will marry her—he, a millionaire! What does it mean, Hiram?"

"The man, he is in my power," Da Souza says in a ponderous and stealthy whisper. "I know something."

She rose and imprinted a solemn kiss upon his forehead. There was something sacramental about the deliberate caress.

"Hiram," she said, "you are a wonderful man!"



CHAPTER XIV

Scarlett Trent spent the first part of the morning, to which he had been looking forward so eagerly, alone in his study with locked door to keep out all intruders. He had come face to face with the first serious check in his career, and it had been dealt him too by the one man whom, of all his associates, he disliked and despised. In the half-open drawer by his side was the barrel of a loaded revolver. He drew it out, laid it on the table before him, and regarded it with moody, fascinated eyes. If only it could be safely done, if only for one moment he could find himself face to face with Da Souza in Bekwando village, where human life was cheap and the slaying of a man an incident scarcely worth noting in the day's events! The thing was easy enough there—here it was too risky. He thrust the weapon back into the drawer with a sigh of regret, just as Da Souza himself appeared upon the scene.

"You sent for me, Trent," the latter remarked timidly. "I am quite ready to answer any more questions."

"Answer this one, then," was the gruff reply. "In Buckomari village before we left for England I was robbed of a letter. I don't think I need ask you who was the thief."

"Really, Trent—I—"

"Don't irritate me; I'm in an ill humour for anything of that sort. You stole it! I can see why now! Have you got it still?"

The Jew shrugged his shoulders.

"Yes."

"Hand it over."

Da Souza drew a large folding case from his pocket and after searching through it for several moments produced an envelope. The handwriting was shaky and irregular, and so faint that even in the strong, sweet light of the morning sunshine Trent had difficulty in reading it. He tore it open and drew out a half-sheet of coarse paper. It was a message from the man who for long he had counted dead.

"BEKWANDO.

"MY DEAR TRENT,-I have been drinking as usual! Some men see snakes, but I have seen death leering at me from the dark corners of this vile hut, and death is an evil thing to look at when one's life has been evil as mine has been. Never mind! I have sown and I must reap! But, my friend, a last word with you. I have a notion, and more than a notion, that I shall never pass back alive through these pestilential swamps. If you should arrive, as you doubtless will, here is a charge which I lay upon you. That agreement of ours is scarcely a fair one, is it, Trent? When I signed it, I wasn't quite myself. Never mind! I'll trust to you to do what's fair. If the thing turns out a great success, put some sort of a share at any rate to my credit and let my daughter have it. You will find her address from Messrs. Harris and Culsom, Solicitors, Lincoln's Inn Fields. You need only ask them for Monty's daughter and show them this letter. They will understand. I believe you to be a just man, Scarlett Trent, although I know you to be a hard one. Do then as I ask.

"MONTY."

Da Souza had left the room quietly. Trent read the letter through twice and locked it up in his desk. Then he rose and lit a pipe, knocking out the ashes carefully and filling the bowl with dark but fragrant tobacco. Presently he rang the bell.

"Tell Mr. Da Souza I wish to see him here at once," he told the servant, and, though the message was a trifle peremptory from a host to his guest, Da Souza promptly appeared, suave and cheerful.

"Shut the door," Trent said shortly.

Da Souza obeyed with unabashed amiability. Trent watched him with something like disgust. Da Souza returning caught the look, and felt compelled to protest.

"My dear Trent," he said, "I do not like the way you address me, or your manners towards me. You speak as though I were a servant. I do not like it all, and it is not fair. I am your guest, am I not?"

"You are my guest by your own invitation," Trent answered roughly, "and if you don't like my manners you can turn out. I may have to endure you in the house till I have made up my mind how to get rid of you, but I want as little of your company as possible. Do you hear?"

Da Souza did hear it, and the worm turned. He sat down in the most comfortable easy-chair, and addressed Trent directly.

"My friend," he said, "you are out of temper, and that is a bad thing. Now listen to me! You are in my power. I have only to go into the City to-morrow and breathe here and there a word about a certain old gentleman who shall be nameless, and you would be a ruined man in something less than an hour; added to this, my friend, you would most certainly be arrested for conspiracy and fraud. That Syndicate of yours was a very smart stroke of business, no doubt, and it was clever of you to keep me in ignorance of it, but as things have turned out now, that will be your condemnation. They will say, why did you keep me in ignorance of this move, and the answer—why, it is very clear! I knew you were selling what was not yours to sell!"

"I kept you away," Trent said scornfully, "because I was dealing with men who would not have touched the thing if they had known that you were in it!"

"Who will believe it?" Da Souza asked, with a sneer. "They will say that it is but one more of the fairy tales of this wonderful Mr. Scarlett Trent."

The breath came through Trent's lips with a little hiss and his eyes were flashing with a dull fire. But Da Souza held his ground. He had nerved himself up to this and he meant going through with it.

"You think I dare not breathe a word for my own sake," he continued. "There is reason in that, but I have other monies. I am rich enough without my sixth share of that Bekwando Land and Mining Company which you and the Syndicate are going to bring out! But then, I am not a fool! I have no wish to throw away money. Now I propose to you therefore a friendly settlement. My daughter Julie is very charming. You admire her, I am sure. You shall marry her, and then we will all be one family. Our interests will be the same, and you may be sure that I shall look after them. Come! Is that not a friendly offer?"

For several minutes Trent smoked furiously, but he did not speak. At the end of that time he took the revolver once more from the drawer of his writing-table and fingered it.

"Da Souza," he said, "if I had you just for five minutes at Bekwando we would talk together of black-mail, you and I, we would talk of marrying your daughter. We would talk then to some purpose—you hound! Get out of the room as fast as your legs will carry you. This revolver is loaded, and I'm not quite master of myself."

Da Souza made off with amazing celerity. Trent drew a short, quick breath. There was a great deal of the wild beast left in him still. At that moment the desire to kill was hot in his blood. His eyes glared as he walked up and down the room. The years of civilisation seemed to have become as nothing. The veneer of the City speculator had fallen away. He was once more as he had been in those wilder days when men made their own laws, and a man's hold upon life was a slighter thing than his thirst for gold. As such, he found the atmosphere of the little room choking him, he drew open the French windows of his little study and strode out into the perfumed and sunlit morning. As such, he found himself face to face unexpectedly and without warning with the girl whom he had discovered sketching in the shrubbery the day before.



CHAPTER XV

Probably nothing else in the world could so soon have transformed Scarlett Trent from the Gold Coast buccaneer to the law-abiding tenant of a Surrey villa. Before her full, inquiring eyes and calm salute he found himself at once abashed and confused. He raised his hand to his head, only to find that he had come out without a hat, and he certainly appeared, as he stood there, to his worst possible advantage.

"Good morning, miss," he stammered; "I'm afraid I startled you!"

She winced a little at his address, but otherwise her manner was not ungracious.

"You did a little," she admitted. "Do you usually stride out of your windows like that, bareheaded and muttering to yourself?"

"I was in a beastly temper," he admitted. "If I had known who was outside—it would have been different."

She looked into his face with some interest. "What an odd thing!" she remarked. "Why, I should have thought that to-day you would have been amiability itself. I read at breakfast-time that you had accomplished something more than ordinarily wonderful in the City and had made—I forget how many hundreds of thousands of pounds. When I showed the sketch of your house to my chief, and told him that you were going to let me interview you to-day, I really thought that he would have raised my salary at once."

"It's more luck than anything," he said. "I've stood next door to ruin twice. I may again, although I'm a millionaire to-day."

She looked at him curiously—at his ugly tweed suit, his yellow boots, and up into the strong, forceful face with eyes set in deep hollows under his protruding brows, at the heavy jaws giving a certain coarseness to his expression, which his mouth and forehead, well-shaped though they were, could not altogether dispel. And at he same time he looked at her, slim, tall, and elegant, daintily clothed from her shapely shoes to her sailor hat, her brown hair, parted in the middle, escaping a little from its confinement to ripple about her forehead, and show more clearly the delicacy of her complexion. Trent was an ignorant man on many subjects, on others his taste seemed almost intuitively correct. He knew that this girl belonged to a class from which his descent and education had left him far apart, a class of which he knew nothing, and with whom he could claim no kinship. She too was realising it—her interest in him was, however, none the less deep. He was a type of those powers which to-day hold the world in their hands, make kingdoms tremble, and change the fate of nations. Perhaps he was all the more interesting to her because, by all the ordinary standards of criticism, he would fail to be ranked, in the jargon of her class, as a gentleman. He represented something in flesh and blood which had never seemed more than half real to her—power without education. She liked to consider herself—being a writer with ambitions who took herself seriously—a student of human nature. Here was a specimen worth impaling, an original being, a creature of a new type such as never had come within the region of her experience. It was worth while ignoring small idiosyncrasies which might offend, in order to annex him. Besides, from a journalistic point of view, the man was more than interesting—he was a veritable treasure.

"You are going to talk to me about Africa, are you not?" she reminded him. "Couldn't we sit in the shade somewhere. I got quite hot walking from the station."

He led the way across the lawn, and they sat under a cedar-tree. He was awkward and ill at ease, but she had tact enough for both.

"I can't understand," he began, "how people are interested in the stuff which gets into papers nowadays. If you want horrors though, I can supply you. For one man who succeeds over there, there are a dozen who find it a short cut down into hell. I can tell you if you like of my days of starvation."

"Go on!"

Like many men who talk but seldom, he had the gift when he chose to speak of reproducing his experiences in vivid though unpolished language. He told her of the days when he had worked on the banks of the Congo with the coolies, a slave in everything but name, when the sun had burned the brains of men to madness, and the palm wine had turned them into howling devils. He told her of the natives of Bekwando, of the days they had spent amongst them in that squalid hut when their fate hung in the balance day by day, and every shout that went up from the warriors gathered round the house of the King was a cry of death. He spoke of their ultimate success, of the granting of the concession which had laid the foundation of his fortunes, and then of that terrible journey back through the bush, followed by the natives who had already repented of their action, and who dogged their footsteps hour after hour, waiting for them only to sleep or rest to seize upon them and haul them back to Bekwando, prisoners for the sacrifice.

"It was only our revolvers which kept them away," he went on. "I shot eight or nine of them at different times when they came too close, and to hear them wailing over the bodies was one of the most hideous things you can imagine. Why, for months and months afterwards I couldn't sleep. I'd wake up in the night and fancy that I heard that cursed yelling outside my window—ay, even on the steamer at night-time if I was on deck before moonlight, I'd seem to hear it rising up out of the water. Ugh!"

She shuddered.

"But you both escaped?" she said.

There was a moment's silence. The shade of the cedar-tree was deep and cool, but it brought little relief to Trent. The perspiration stood out on his forehead in great beads, he breathed for a moment in little gasps as though stifled.

"No," he answered; "my partner died within a mile or two of the Coast. He was very ill when we started, and I pretty well had to carry him the whole of the last day. I did my best for him. I did, indeed, but it was no good. I had to leave him. There was no use sacrificing oneself for a dead man."

She inclined her head sympathetically.

"Was he an Englishman?" she asked.

He faced the question just as he had faced death years before leering at him, a few feet from the muzzle of his revolver.

"He was an Englishman. The only name we had ever heard him called by was 'Monty.' Some said he was a broken-down gentleman. I believe he was."

She was unconscious of his passionate, breathless scrutiny, unconscious utterly of the great wave of relief which swept into his face as he realised that his words were without any special meaning to her.

"It was very sad indeed," she said. "If he had lived, he would have shared with you, I suppose, in the concession?"

Trent nodded.

"Yes, we were equal partners. We had an arrangement by which, if one died, the survivor took the lot. I didn't want it though, I'd rather he had pulled through. I would indeed," he repeated with nervous force.

"I am quite sure of that," she answered. "And now tell me something about your career in the City after you came to England. Do you know, I have scarcely ever been in what you financiers call the City. In a way it must be interesting."

"You wouldn't find it so," he said. "It is not a place for such as you. It is a life of lies and gambling and deceit. There are times when I have hated it. I hate it now!"

She was unaffectedly surprised. What a speech for a millionaire of yesterday!

"I thought," she said, "that for those who took part in it, it possessed a fascination stronger than anything else in the world."

He shook his head.

"It is an ugly fascination," he said. "You are in the swim, and you must hold your own. You gamble with other men, and when you win you chuckle. All the time you're whittling your conscience away—if ever you had any. You're never quite dishonest, and you're never quite honest. You come out on top, and afterwards you hate yourself. It's a dirty little life!"

"Well," she remarked after a moment's pause, "you have surprised me very much. At any rate you are rich enough now to have no more to do with it."

He kicked a fir cone savagely away.

"If I could," he said, "I would shut up my office to-morrow, sell out, and live upon a farm. But I've got to keep what I've made. The more you succeed the more involved you become. It's a sort of slavery."

"Have you no friends?" she asked.

"I have never," he answered, "had a friend in my life."

"You have guests at any rate!"

"I sent 'em away last night!"

"What, the young lady in blue?" she asked demurely.

"Yes, and the other one too. Packed them clean off, and they're not coming back either!"

"I am very pleased to hear it," she remarked.

"There's a man and his wife and daughter here I can't get rid of quite so easily," he went on gloomily, "but they've got to go!"

"They would be less objectionable to the people round here who might like to come and see you," she remarked, "than two unattached young ladies."

"May be," he answered. "Yet I'd give a lot to be rid of them."

He had risen to his feet and was standing with his back to the cedar-tree, looking away with fixed eyes to where the sunlight fell upon a distant hillside gorgeous with patches and streaks of yellow gorse and purple heather. Presently she noticed his abstraction and looked also through the gap in the trees.

"You have a beautiful view here," she said. "You are fond of the country, are you not?"

"Very," he answered.

"It is not every one," she remarked, "who is able to appreciate it, especially when their lives have been spent as yours must have been."

He looked at her curiously. "I wonder," he said, "if you have any idea how my life has been spent."

"You have given me," she said, "a very fair idea about some part of it at any rate."

He drew a long breath and looked down at her.

"I have given you no idea at all," he said firmly. "I have told you a few incidents, that is all. You have talked to me as though I were an equal. Listen! you are probably the first lady with whom I have ever spoken. I do not want to deceive you. I never had a scrap of education. My father was a carpenter who drank himself to death, and my mother was a factory girl. I was in the workhouse when I was a boy. I have never been to school. I don't know how to talk properly, but I should be worse even than I am, if I had not had to mix up with a lot of men in the City who had been properly educated. I am utterly and miserably ignorant. I've got low tastes and lots of 'em. I was drunk a few nights ago—I've done most of the things men who are beasts do. There! Now, don't you want to run away?"

She shook her head and smiled up at him. She was immensely interested.

"If that is the worst," she said gently, "I am not at all frightened. You know that it is my profession to write about men and women. I belong to a world of worn-out types, and to meet any one different is quite a luxury."

"The worst!" A sudden fear sent an icy coldness shivering through his veins. His heart seemed to stop beating, his cheeks were blanched. The worst of him. He had not told her that he was a robber, that the foundation of his fortunes was a lie; that there lived a man who might bring all this great triumph of his shattered and crumbling about his ears. A passionate fear lest she might ever knew of these things was born in his heart at that moment, never altogether to leave him.

The sound of a footstep close at hand made them both turn their heads. Along the winding path came Da Souza, with an ugly smirk upon his white face, smoking a cigar whose odour seemed to poison the air. Trent turned upon him with a look of thunder.

"What do you want here, Da Souza?" he asked fiercely.

Da Souza held up the palms of his hands.

"I was strolling about," he said, "and I saw you through the trees. I did not know that you were so pleasantly engaged," he added, with a wave of his hat to the girl, "or I would not have intruded."

Trent kicked open the little iron gate which led into the garden beyond.

"Well, get out, and don't come here again," he said shortly. "There's plenty of room for you to wander about and poison the air with those abominable cigars of yours without coming here."

Da Souza replaced his hat upon his head. "The cigars, my friend, are excellent. We cannot all smoke the tobacco of a millionaire, can we, miss?"

The girl, who was making some notes in her book, continued her work without the slightest appearance of having heard him.

Da Souza snorted, but at that moment he felt a grip like iron upon his shoulder, and deemed retreat expedient.

"If you don't go without another word," came a hot whisper in his ear, "I'll throw you into the horse-pond."

He went swiftly, ungracious, scowling. Trent returned to the girl. She looked up at him and closed her book.

"You must change your friends," she said gravely. "What a horrible man!"

"He is a beast," Trent answered, "and go he shall. I would to Heaven that I had never seen him."

She rose, slipped her note-book into her pocket, and drew on her gloves.

"I have taken up quite enough of your time," she said. "I am so much obliged to you, Mr. Trent, for all you have told me. It has been most interesting."

She held out her hand, and the touch of it sent his heart beating with a most unusual emotion. He was aghast at the idea of her imminent departure. He realised that, when she passed out of his gate, she passed into a world where she would be hopelessly lost to him, so he took his courage into his hands, and was very bold indeed.

"You have not told me your name," he reminded her.

She laughed lightly.

"How very unprofessional of me! I ought to have given you a card! For all you know I may be an impostor, indulging an unpardonable curiosity. My name is Wendermott—Ernestine Wendermott."

He repeated it after her.

"Thank you," he said. "I am beginning to think of some more things which I might have told you."

"Why, I should have to write a novel then to get them all in," she said. "I am sure you have given me all the material I need here."

"I am going," he said abruptly, "to ask you something very strange and very presumptuous!"

She looked at him in surprise, scarcely understanding what he could mean.

"May I come and see you some time?"

The earnestness of his gaze and the intense anxiety of his tone almost disconcerted her. He was obviously very much in earnest, and she had found him far from uninteresting.

"By all means," she answered pleasantly, "if you care to. I have a little flat in Culpole Street—No. 81. You must come and have tea with me one afternoon."

"Thank you," he said simply, with a sigh of immense relief.

He walked with her to the gate, and they talked about rhododendrons.

Then he watched her till she became a speck in the dusty road—she had refused a carriage, and he had had tact enough not to press any hospitality upon her.

"His little girl!" he murmured. "Monty's little girl!"



CHAPTER XVI

Ernestine Wendermott travelled back to London in much discomfort, being the eleventh occupant of a third-class carriage in a particularly unpunctual and dilatory train. Arrived at Waterloo, she shook out her skirts with a little gesture of relief and started off to walk to the Strand. Half-way across the bridge she came face to face with a tall, good-looking young man who was hurrying in the opposite direction. He stopped short as he recognised her, dropped his eyeglass, and uttered a little exclamation of pleasure.

"Ernestine, by all that's delightful! I am in luck to-day!"

She smiled slightly and gave him her hand, but it was evident that this meeting was not wholly agreeable to her.

"I don't quite see where the luck comes in," she answered. "I have no time to waste talking to you now. I am in a hurry."

"You will allow me," he said hopefully, "to walk a little way with you?"

"I am not able to prevent it—if you think it worth while," she answered.

He looked down—he was by her side now—in good-humoured protest.

"Come, Ernestine," he said, "you mustn't bear malice against me. Perhaps I was a little hasty when I spoke so strongly about your work. I don't like your doing it and never shall like it, but I've said all I want to. You won't let it divide us altogether, will you?"

"For the present," she answered, "it occupies the whole of my time, and the whole of my thoughts."

"To the utter exclusion, I suppose," he remarked, "of me?"

She laughed gaily.

"My dear Cecil! when have I ever led you to suppose for a moment that I have ever wasted any time thinking of you?"

He was determined not to be annoyed, and he ignored both the speech and the laugh.

"May I inquire how you are getting on?"

"I am getting on," she answered, "very well indeed. The Editor is beginning to say very nice things to me, and already the men treat me just as though I were a comrade! It is so nice of them!"

"Is it?" he muttered doubtfully.

"I have just finished," she continued, "the most important piece of work they have trusted me with yet, and I have been awfully lucky. I have been to interview a millionaire!"

"A man?"

She nodded. "Of course!"

"It isn't fit work for you," he exclaimed hastily.

"You will forgive me if I consider myself the best judge of that," she answered coldly. "I am a journalist, and so long as it is honest work my sex doesn't count. If every one whom I have to see is as courteous to me as Mr. Trent has been, I shall consider myself very lucky indeed."

"As who?" he cried.

She looked up at him in surprise. They were at the corner of the Strand, but as though in utter forgetfulness of their whereabouts, he had suddenly stopped short and gripped her tightly by the arm. She shook herself free with a little gesture of annoyance.

"Whatever is the matter with you, Cecil? Don't gape at me like that, and come along at once, unless you want to be left behind. Yes, we are very short-handed and the chief let me go down to see Mr. Trent. He didn't expect for a moment that I should get him to talk to me, but I did, and he let me sketch the house. I am awfully pleased with myself I can tell you."

The young man walked by her side for a moment in silence. She looked up at him casually as they crossed the street, and something in his face surprised her.

"Why, Cecil, what on earth is the matter with you?" she exclaimed.

He looked down at her with a new seriousness.

"I was thinking," he said, "how oddly things turn out. So you have been down to interview Mr. Scarlett Trent for a newspaper, and he was civil to you!"

"Well, I don't see anything odd about that," she exclaimed impatiently. "Don't be so enigmatical. If you've anything to say, say it! Don't look at me like an owl!"

"I have a good deal to say to you," he answered gravely. "How long shall you be at the office?"

"About an hour—perhaps longer."

"I will wait for you!"

"I'd rather you didn't. I don't want them to think that I go trailing about with an escort."

"Then may I come down to your flat? I have something really important to say to you, Ernestine. It does not concern myself at all. It is wholly about you. It is something which you ought to know."

"You are trading upon my curiosity for the sake of a tea," she laughed. "Very well, about five o'clock."

He bowed and walked back westwards with a graver look than usual upon his boyish face, for he had a task before him which was very little to his liking. Ernestine swung open the entrance door to the "Hour", and passed down the rows of desks until she reached the door at the further end marked "Sub-Editor." She knocked and was admitted at once.

A thin, dark young man, wearing a pince-nez and smoking a cigarette, looked up from his writing as she entered. He waved her to a seat, but his pen never stopped for a second.

"Back, Miss Wendermott! Very good! What did you get?"

"Interview and sketch of the house," she responded briskly.

"Interview by Jove! That's good! Was he very difficult?"

"Ridiculously easy! Told me everything I asked and a lot more. If I could have got it all down in his own language it would have been positively thrilling."

The sub-editor scribbled in silence for a moment or two. He had reached an important point in his own work. His pen went slower, hesitated for a moment, and then dashed on with renewed vigour.

"Read the first few sentences of what you've got," he remarked.

Ernestine obeyed. To all appearance the man was engrossed in his own work, but when she paused he nodded his head appreciatively.

"It'll do!" he said. "Don't try to polish it. Give it down, and see that the proofs are submitted to me. Where's the sketch?"

She held it out to him. For a moment he looked away from his own work and took the opportunity to light a fresh cigarette. Then he nodded, hastily scrawled some dimensions on the margin of the little drawing and settled down again to work.

"It'll do," he said. "Give it to Smith. Come back at eight to look at your proofs after I've done with them. Good interview! Good sketch! You'll do, Miss Wendermott."

She went out laughing softly. This was quite the longest conversation she had ever had with the chief. She made her way to the side of the first disengaged typist, and sitting in an easy-chair gave down her copy, here and there adding a little but leaving it mainly in the rough. She knew whose hand, with a few vigorous touches would bring the whole thing into the form which the readers of the "Hour", delighted in, and she was quite content to have it so. The work was interesting and more than an hour had passed before she rose and put on her gloves.

"I am coming back at eight," she said, "but the proofs are to go in to Mr. Darrel! Nothing come in for me, I suppose?"

The girl shook her head, so Ernestine walked out into the street. Then she remembered Cecil Davenant and his strange manner—the story which he was even now waiting to tell her. She looked at her watch and after a moment's hesitation called a hansom.

81, Culpole Street, she told him. "This is a little extravagant," she said to herself as the man wheeled his horse round, "but to-day I think that I have earned it."



CHAPTER XVII

"Ernestine," he said gravely, "I am going to speak to you about your father!"

She looked up at him in swift surprise.

"Is it necessary?"

"I think so," he answered. "You won't like what I'm going to tell you! You'll think you've been badly treated. So you have! I pledged my word, in a weak hour, with the others. To-day I'm going to break it. I think it best."

"Well?"

"You've been deceived! You were told always that your father had died in prison. He didn't."

"What!"

Her sharp cry rang out strangely into the little room. Already he could see signs of the coming storm, and the task which lay before him seemed more hateful than ever.

"Listen," he said. "I must tell you some things which you know in order to explain others which you do not know. Your father was a younger son born of extravagant parents, virtually penniless and without the least capacity for earning money. I don't blame him—who could? I couldn't earn money myself. If I hadn't got it I daresay that I should go to the bad as he did."

The girl's lips tightened, and she drew a little breath through her teeth. Davenant hesitated.

"You know all about that company affair. Of course they made your father the butt of the whole thing, although he was little more than a tool. He was sent to prison for seven years. You were only a child then and your mother was dead. Well, when the seven years were up, your relations and mine too, Ernestine, concocted what I have always considered an ill-begotten and a miserably selfish plot. Your father, unfortunately, yielded to them, for your sake. You were told that he had died in prison. He did not. He lived through his seven years there, and when he came out did so in another name and went abroad on the morning of the day of his liberation."

"Good God!" she cried. "And now!"

"He is dead," Davenant answered hastily, "but only just lately. Wait a minute. You are going to be furiously angry. I know it, and I don't blame you. Only listen for a moment. The scheme was hatched up between my father and your two uncles. I have always hated it and always protested against it. Remember that and be fair to me. This is how they reasoned. Your father's health, they said, was ruined, and if he lives the seven years what is there left for him when he comes out? He was a man, as you know, of aristocratic and fastidious tastes. He would have the best of everything—society, clubs, sport. Now all these were barred against him. If he had reappeared he could not have shown his face in Pall Mall, or on the racecourses, and every moment of his life would be full of humiliations and bitterness. Virtually then, for such a man as he was, life in England was over. Then there was you. You were a pretty child and the Earl had no children. If your father was dead the story would be forgotten, you would marry brilliantly and an ugly page in the family history would be blotted out. That was how they looked at it—it was how they put it to your father."

"He consented?"

"Yes, he consented! He saw the wisdom of it for your sake, for the sake of the family, even for his own sake. The Earl settled an income upon him and he left England secretly on the morning of his release. We had the news of his death only a week or two ago."

She stood up, her eyes blazing, her hands clenched together.

"I thank God," she said "that I have found the courage to break away from those people and take a little of my life into my own hands. You can tell them this if you will, Cecil,—my uncle Lord Davenant, your mother, and whoever had a say in this miserable affair. Tell them from me that I know the truth and that they are a pack of cowardly, unnatural old women. Tell them that so long as I live It will never willingly speak to one of them again.

"I was afraid you'd take it like that," he remarked dolefully.

"Take it like that!" she repeated in fierce scorn. "How else could a woman hear such news? How else do you suppose she could feel to be told that she had been hoodwinked, and kept from her duty and a man's heart very likely broken, to save the respectability of a worn-out old family. Oh, how could they have dared to do it? How could they have dared to do it?"

"It was a beastly mistake," he admitted.

A whirlwind of scorn seemed to sweep over her. She could keep still no longer. She walked up and down the little room. Her hands were clenched, her eyes flashing.

"To tell me that he was dead—to let him live out the rest of his poor life in exile and alone! Did they think that I didn't care? Cecil," she exclaimed, suddenly turning and facing him, "I always loved my father! You may think that I was too young to remember him—I wasn't, I loved him always. When I grew up and they told me of his disgrace I was bitterly sorry, for I loved his memory—but it made no difference. And all the time it was a weak, silly lie! They let him come out, poor father, without a friend to speak to him and they hustled him out of the country. And I, whose place was there with him, never knew!"

"You were only a child, Ernestine. It was twelve years ago."

"Child! I may have been only a child, but I should have been old enough to know where my place was. Thank God I have done with these people and their disgusting shibboleth of respectability."

"You are a little violent," he remarked.

"Pshaw!" She flashed a look of scorn upon him. "You don't understand! How should you, you are of their kidney—you're only half a man. Thank God that my mother was of the people! I'd have died to have gone smirking through life with a brick for a heart and milk and water in my veins! Of all the stupid pieces of brutality I ever heard of, this is the most callous and the most heartbreaking."

"It was a great mistake," he said, "but I believe they did it for the best."

She sat down with a little gesture of despair.

"I really think you'd better go away, Cecil," she said. "You exasperate me too horribly. I shall strike you or throw something at you soon. Did it for the best! What a miserable whine! Poor dear old dad, to think that they should have done this thing."

She buried her face in her handkerchief and sobbed for the second time since her childhood. Davenant was wise enough to attempt no sort of consolation. He leaned a little forward and hid his own face with the palm of his hand. When at last she looked up her face had cleared and her tone was less bitter. It would have gone very hard with the Earl of Eastchester, however, if he had called to see his niece just then.

"Well," she said, "I want to know now why, after keeping silent all this time, you thought it best to tell me the truth this afternoon?"

"Because," he answered, "you told me that you had just been to see Scarlett Trent!"

"And what on earth had that to do with it?"

"Because Scarlett Trent was with your father when he died. They were on an excursion somewhere up in the bush—the very excursion that laid the foundation of Trent's fortune."

"Go on," she cried. "Tell me all that you know! this is wonderful!"

"Well, I am glad to tell you this at any rate," he said. "I always liked your father and I saw him off when he left England, and have written to him often since. I believe I was his only correspondent in this country, except his solicitors. He had a very adventurous and, I am afraid, not a very happy time. He never wrote cheerfully, and he mortgaged the greater part of his income. I don't blame him for anything he did. A man needs some responsibility, or some one dependent upon him to keep straight. To be frank with you, I don't think he did."

"Poor dad," she murmured, "of course he didn't! I know I'd have gone to the devil as fast as I could if I'd been treated like it!"

"Well, he drifted about from place to place and at last he got to the Gold Coast. Here I half lost sight of him, and his few letters were more bitter and despairing than ever. The last I had told me that he was just off on an expedition into the interior with another Englishman. They were to visit a native King and try to obtain from him certain concessions, including the right to work a wonderful gold-mine somewhere near the village of Bekwando."

"Why, the great Bekwando Land Company!" she cried. "It is the one Scarlett Trent has just formed a syndicate to work."

Davenant nodded.

"Yes. It was a terrible risk they were running," he said, "for the people were savage and the climate deadly. He wrote cheerfully for him, though. He had a partner, he said, who was strong and determined, and they had presents, to get which he had mortgaged the last penny of his income. It was a desperate enterprise perhaps, but it suited him, and he went on to tell me this, Ernestine. If he succeeded and he became wealthy, he was returning to England just for a sight of you. He was so changed, he said, that no one in the world would recognise him. Poor fellow! It was the last line I had from him."

"And you are sure," Ernestine said slowly, "that Scarlett Trent was his partner?"

"Absolutely. Trent's own story clinches the matter. The prospectus of the mine quotes the concession as having been granted to him by the King of Bekwando in the same month as your father wrote to me."

"And what news," she asked, "have you had since?"

"Only this letter—I will read it to you—from one of the missionaries of the Basle Society. I heard nothing for so long that I made inquiries, and this is the result."

Ernestine took it and read it out steadily.

"FORTNRENIG.

"DEAR Sir,-In reply to your letter and inquiry, respecting the whereabouts of a Mr. Richard Grey, the matter was placed in my hands by the agent of Messrs. Castle, and I have personally visited Buckoman, the village at which he was last heard of. It seems that in February, 18—he started on an expedition to Bekwando in the interior with an Englishman by the name of Trent, with a view to buying land from a native King, or obtaining the concession to work the valuable gold-mines of that country. The expedition seems to have been successful, but Trent returned alone and reported that his companion had been attacked by bush-fever on the way back and had died in a few hours.

"I regret very much having to send you such sad and scanty news in return for your handsome donation to our funds. I have made every inquiry, but cannot trace any personal effects or letter. Mr. Grey, I find, was known out here altogether by the nickname of Monty.

"I deeply regret the pain which this letter will doubtless cause you, and trusting that you may seek and receive consolation where alone it may be found,

"I am,

"Yours most sincerely,

"Chas. ADDISON."

Ernestine read the letter carefully through, and instead of handing it back to Davenant, put it into her pocket when she rose up. "Cecil," she said, "I want you to leave me at once! You may come back to-morrow at the same time. I am going to think this out quietly."

He took up his hat. "There is one thing more, Ernestine," he said slowly. "Enclosed in the letter from the missionary at Attra was another and a shorter note, which, in accordance with his request, I burnt as soon as I read it. I believe the man was honest when he told me that for hours he had hesitated whether to send me those few lines or not. Eventually he decided to do so, but he appealed to my honour to destroy the note as soon as I had read it."

"Well!"

"He thought it his duty to let me know that there had been rumours as to how your father met his death. Trent, it seems, had the reputation of being a reckless and daring man, and, according to some agreement which they had, he profited enormously by your father's death. There seems to have been no really definite ground for the rumour except that the body was not found where Trent said that he had died. Apart from that, life is held cheap out there, and although your father was in delicate health, his death under such conditions could not fail to be suspicious. I hope I haven't said too much. I've tried to put it to you exactly as it was put to me!"

"Thank you," Ernestine said, "I think I understand."



CHAPTER XVIII

Dinner at the Lodge that night was not a very lively affair. Trent had great matters in his brain and was not in the least disposed to make conversation for the sake of his unbidden guests. Da Souza's few remarks he treated with silent contempt, and Mrs. Da Souza he answered only in monosyllables. Julie, nervous and depressed, stole away before dessert, and Mrs. Da Souza soon followed her, very massive, and frowning with an air of offended dignity. Da Souza, who opened the door for them, returned to his seat, moodily flicking the crumbs from his trousers with his serviette.

"Hang it all, Trent," he remarked in an aggrieved tone, "you might be a bit more amiable! Nice lively dinner for the women I must say."

"One isn't usually amiable to guests who stay when they're not asked," Trent answered gruffly. "However, if I hadn't much to say to your wife and daughter, I have a word or two to say to you, so fill up your glass and listen."

Da Souza obeyed, but without heartiness. He stretched himself out in his chair and looked down thoughtfully at the large expanse of shirt-front, in the centre of which flashed an enormous diamond.

"I've been into the City to-day as you know," Trent continued, "and I found as I expected that you have been making efforts to dispose of your share in the Bekwando Syndicate."

"I can assure you—"

"Oh rot!" Trent interrupted. "I know what I'm talking about. I won't have you sell out. Do you hear? If you try it on I'll queer the market for you at any risk. I won't marry your daughter, I won't be blackmailed, and I won't be bullied. We're in this together, sink or swim. If you pull me down you've got to come too. I'll admit that if Monty were to present himself in London to-morrow and demand his full pound of flesh we should be ruined, but he isn't going to do it. By your own showing there is no immediate risk, and you've got to leave the thing in my hands to do what I think best. If you play any hanky-panky tricks—look here, Da Souza, I'll kill you, sure! Do you hear? I could do it, and no one would be the wiser so far as I was concerned. You take notice of what I say, Da Souza. You've made a fortune, and be satisfied. That's all!"

"You won't marry Julie, then?" Da Souza said gloomily.

"No, I'm shot if I will!" Trent answered. "And look here, Da Souza, I'm leaving here for town to-morrow—taken a furnished flat in Dover Street—you can stay here if you want, but there'll only be a caretaker in the place. That's all I've got to say. Make yourself at home with the port and cigars. Last night, you know! You'll excuse me! I want a breath of fresh air."

Trent strolled through the open window into the garden, and breathed a deep sigh of relief. He was a free man again now. He had created new dangers—a new enemy to face—but what did he care? All his life had been spent in facing dangers and conquering enemies. What he had done before he could do again! As he lit a pipe and walked to and fro, he felt that this new state of things lent a certain savour to life—took from it a certain sensation of finality not altogether agreeable, which his recent great achievements in the financial world seemed to have inspired. After all, what could Da Souza do? His prosperity was altogether bound up in the success of the Bekwando Syndicate—he was never the man to kill the goose which was laying such a magnificent stock of golden eggs. The affair, so far as he was concerned, troubled him scarcely at all on cool reflection. As he drew near the little plantation he even forgot all about it. Something else was filling his thoughts!

The change in him became physical as well as mental. The hard face of the man softened, what there was of coarseness in its rugged outline became altogether toned down. He pushed open the gate with fingers which were almost reverent; he came at last to a halt in the exact spot where he had seen her first. Perhaps it was at that moment he realised most completely and clearly the curious thing which had come to him—to him of all men, hard-hearted, material, an utter stranger in the world of feminine things. With a pleasant sense of self-abandonment he groped about, searching for its meaning. He was a man who liked to understand thoroughly everything he saw and felt, and this new atmosphere in which he found himself was a curious source of excitement to him. Only he knew that the central figure of it all was this girl, that he had come out here to think about her, and that henceforth she had become to him the standard of those things which were worth having in life. Everything about her had been a revelation to him. The women whom he had come across in his battle upwards, barmaids and their fellows, fifth-rate actresses, occasionally the suburban wife of a prosperous City man, had impressed him only with a sort of coarse contempt. It was marvellous how thoroughly and clearly he had recognised Ernestine at once as a type of that other world of womenkind, of which he admittedly knew nothing. Yet it was so short a time since she had wandered into his life, so short a time that he was even a little uneasy at the wonderful strength of this new passion, a thing which had leaped up like a forest tree in a world of magic, a live, fully-grown thing, mighty and immovable in a single night. He found himself thinking of all the other things in life from a changed standpoint. His sense of proportions was altered, his financial triumphs were no longer omnipotent. He was inclined even to brush them aside, to consider them more as an incident in his career. He associated her now with all those plans concerning the future which he had been dimly formulating since the climax of his successes had come. She was of the world which he sought to enter—at once the stimulus and the object of his desires. He forgot all about Da Souza and his threats, about the broken-down, half-witted old man who was gazing with wistful eyes across the ocean which kept him there, an exile—he remembered nothing save the wonderful, new thing which had come into his life. A month ago he would have scoffed at the idea of there being anything worth considering outside the courts and alleys of the money-changers' market. To-night he knew of other things. To-night he knew that all he had done so far was as nothing—that as yet his foot was planted only on the threshold of life, and in the path along which he must hew his way lay many fresh worlds to conquer. To-night he told himself that he was equal to them all. There was something out here in the dim moonlight, something suggested by the shadows, the rose-perfumed air, the delicate and languid stillness, which crept into his veins and coursed through his blood like magic.

* * * * *

Yet every now and then the same thought came; it lay like a small but threatening black shadow across all those brilliant hopes and dreams which were filling his brain. So far he had played the game of life as a hard man, perhaps, and a selfish one, but always honestly. Now, for the first time, he had stepped aside from the beaten track. He told himself that he was not bound to believe Da Souza's story, that he had left Monty with the honest conviction that he was past all human help. Yet he knew that such consolation was the merest sophistry. Through the twilight, as he passed to and fro, he fancied more than once that the wan face of an old man, with wistful, sorrowing eyes, was floating somewhere before him—and he stopped to listen with bated breath to the wind rustling in the elm-trees, fancying he could bear that same passionate cry ringing still in his ears—the cry of an old man parted from his kin and waiting for death in a lonely land.



CHAPTER XIX

Ernestine found a letter on her plate a few mornings afterwards which rather puzzled her. It was from a firm of solicitors in Lincoln's Inn—the Eastchester family solicitors—requesting her to call that morning to see them on important business. There was not a hint as to the nature of it, merely a formal line or two and a signature. Ernestine, who had written insulting letters to all her relatives during the last few days, smiled as she laid it down. Perhaps the family had called upon Mr. Cuthbert to undertake their defence and bring her round to a reasonable view of things. The idea was amusing enough, but her first impulse was not to go. Nothing but the combination of an idle morning and a certain measure of curiosity induced her to keep the appointment.

She was evidently expected, for she was shown at once into the private office of the senior partner. The clerk who ushered her in pronounced her name indistinctly, and the elderly man who rose from his chair at her entrance looked at her inquiringly.

"I am Miss Wendermott," she said, coming forward. "I had a letter from you this morning; you wished to see me, I believe."

Mr. Cuthbert dropped at once his eyeglass and his inquiring gaze, and held out his hand.

"My dear Miss Wendermott," he said, "you must pardon the failing eyesight of an old man. To be sure you are, to be sure. Sit down, Miss Wendermott, if you please. Dear me, what a likeness!"

"You mean to my father?" she asked quietly.

"To your father, certainly, poor, dear old boy! You must excuse me, Miss Wendermott. Your father and I were at Eton together, and I think I may say that we were always something more than lawyer and client—a good deal more, a good deal more! He was a fine fellow at heart—a fine, dear fellow. Bless me, to think that you are his daughter!"

"It's very nice to hear you speak of him so, Mr. Cuthbert," she said. "My father may have been very foolish—I suppose he was really worse than foolish—but I think that he was most abominably and shamefully treated, and so long as I live I shall never forgive those who were responsible for it. I don't mean you, Mr. Cuthbert, of course. I mean my grand-father and my uncle." Mr. Cuthbert shook his head slowly.

"The Earl," he said, "was a very proud man—a very proud man."

"You may call it pride," she exclaimed. "I call it rank and brutal selfishness! They had no right to force such a sacrifice upon him. He would have been content, I am sure, to have lived quietly in England—to have kept out of their way, to have conformed to their wishes in any reasonable manner. But to rob him of home and friends and family and name—well, may God call them to account for it, and judge them as they judged him!"

"I was against it," he said sadly, "always."

"So Mr. Davenant told me," she said. "I can't quite forgive you, Mr. Cuthbert, for letting me grow up and be so shamefully imposed upon, but of course I don't blame you as I do the others. I am only thankful that I have made myself independent of my relations. I think, after the letters which I wrote to them last night, they will be quite content to let me remain where they put my father—outside their lives."

"I had heard," Mr. Cuthbert said hesitatingly, "that you were following some occupation. Something literary, is it not?"

"I am a journalist," Ernestine answered promptly, "and I'm proud to say that I am earning my own living."

He looked at her with a fine and wonderful curiosity. In his way he was quite as much one of the old school as the Earl of Eastchester, and the idea of a lady—a Wendermott, too—calling herself a journalist and proud of making a few hundreds a year was amazing enough to him. He scarcely knew how to answer her.

"Yes, yes," he said, "you have some of your father's spirit, some of his pluck too. And that reminds me—we wrote to you to call."

"Yes."

"Mr. Davenant has told you that your father was engaged in some enterprise with this wonderful Mr. Scarlett Trent, when he died."

"Yes! He told me that!"

"Well, I have had a visit just recently from that gentleman. It seems that your father when he was dying spoke of his daughter in England, and Mr. Trent is very anxious now to find you out, and speaks of a large sum of money which he wishes to invest in your name."

"He has been a long time thinking about it," Ernestine remarked.

"He explained that," Mr. Cuthbert continued, "in this way. Your father gave him our address when he was dying, but the envelope on which it was written got mislaid, and he only came across it a day or two ago. He came to see me at once, and he seems prepared to act very handsomely. He pressed very hard indeed for your name and address, but I did not feel at liberty to disclose them before seeing you."

"You were quite right, Mr. Cuthbert," she answered. "I suppose this is the reason why Mr. Davenant has just told me the whole miserable story."

"It is one reason," he admitted, "but in any case I think that Mr. Davenant had made up his mind that you should know."

"Mr. Trent, I suppose, talks of this money as a present to me?"

"He did not speak of it in that way," Mr. Cuthbert answered, "but in a sense that is, of course, what it amounts to. At the same time I should like to say that under the peculiar circumstances of the case I should consider you altogether justified in accepting it."

Ernestine drew herself up. Once more in her finely flashing eyes and resolute air the lawyer was reminded of his old friend.

"I will tell you what I should call it, Mr. Cuthbert," she said, "I will tell you what I believe it is! It is blood-money."

Mr. Cuthbert dropped his eyeglass, and rose from his chair, startled.

"Blood-money! My dear young lady! Blood-money!"

"Yes! You have heard the whole story, I suppose! What did it sound like to you? A valuable concession granted to two men, one old, the other young! one strong, the other feeble! yet the concession read, if one should die the survivor should take the whole. Who put that in, do you suppose? Not my father! you may be sure of that. And one of them does die, and Scarlett Trent is left to take everything. Do you think that reasonable? I don't. Now, you say, after all this time he is fired with a sudden desire to behave handsomely to the daughter of his dead partner. Fiddlesticks! I know Scarlett Trent, although he little knows who I am, and he isn't that sort of man at all. He'd better have kept away from you altogether, for I fancy he's put his neck in the noose now! I do not want his money, but there is something I do want from Mr. Scarlett Trent, and that is the whole knowledge of my father's death."

Mr. Cuthbert sat down heavily in his chair.

"But, my dear young lady," he said, "you do not suspect Mr. Trent of—er—making away with your father!'

"And why not? According to his own showing they were alone together when he died. What was to prevent it? I want to know more about it, and I am going to, if I have to travel to the Gold Coast myself. I will tell you frankly, Mr. Cuthbert—I suspect Mr. Scarlett Trent. No, don't interrupt me. It may seem absurd to you now that he is Mr. Scarlett Trent, millionaire, with the odour of civilisation clinging to him, and the respectability of wealth. But I, too, have seen him, and I have heard him talk. He has helped me to see the other man—half-savage, splendidly masterful, forging his way through to success by sheer pluck and unswerving obstinacy. Listen, I admire your Mr. Trent! He is a man, and when he speaks to you you know that he was born with a destiny. But there is the other side. Do you think that he would let a man's life stand in his way? Not he! He'd commit a murder, or would have done in those days, as readily as you or I would sweep away a fly. And it is because he is that sort of man that I want to know more about my father's death."