"You may keep the ring," she said.

"Thank you," was his reply, and he put it on his finger, looking down at it with an enigmatical expression. "And is there nothing more?"

She willfully misconstrued his question. She took the torn pieces of envelope from her pocket and handed them to him. "These are yours," she said.

He raised his eyebrows. "Thank you again. But I do not see their value. One could almost think you were a detective, you are so armed."

"Who is he? What is he to you?" she asked.

"He is an unlucky man, like myself, and my best friend. He helped me out of battle, murder and sudden death more than once, and we shared the same blanket times without number."

"Where is he now?" she said in a whisper, not daring to look at him lest she should show how disturbed she was.

"He is in a hospital in New York."

"Has he no friends?"

"Do I count as nothing at all?"

"I mean no others—no wife or family?"

"He has a wife, and she has a daughter. That is all I know. They have been parted through some cause. Why do you ask? Do you know him?"

"No, I do not know him."

Do you know the wife? Please tell me, for at his request I am trying to find her, and I have failed."

"Yes, I know her," she said painfully and slowly. "You need search no longer. She will be at your hotel to-night."

He started. Then he said: "I'm glad of that. How did you come to know? Are you friends?"

Though her face was turned from him resolutely, he saw a flush creep up her neck to her hair.

"We are not friends," she said vaguely. "But I know that she is coming to see her daughter."

"Who is her daughter?"

She raised her parasol toward the spot where Mildred Margrave stood and said, "That is her daughter."

"Miss Margrave? Why has she a different name?"

"Let Mrs. Gladney explain that to you. Do not make yourself known to the daughter till you see her mother. Believe me, it will be better for the daughter's sake."

She now turned and looked at him with a pity through which trembled something like a troubled fear. "You asked me to forgive you," she said. "Good-bye. Mark Telford, I do forgive you." She held out her hand. He took it, shaking his head a little over it, but said no word.

"We had better part here and meet no more," she added.

"Pardon, but banishment," he said as he let her hand go.

"There is nothing else possible in this world," she rejoined in a muffled voice.

"Nothing in this world," he replied. "Good-bye till we meet again—somewhere."

So saying, he turned and walked rapidly away. Her eyes followed him, a look of misery, horror and sorrow upon her. When he had disappeared in the trees, she sat down on the bench. "It is dreadful," she whispered, awestricken. "His friend her husband! His daughter there, and he does not know her! What will the end of it be?"

She was glad she had forgiven him and glad he had the ring. She had something in her life now that helped to wipe out the past—still, a something of which she dared not think freely. The night before she had sat in her room thinking of the man who was giving her what she had lost many years past, and, as she thought, she felt his arm steal round her and his lips on her cheek, but at that a mocking voice said in her ear: "You are my wife. I am not dead." And her happy dream was gone.

George Hagar, looking up from below, saw her sitting alone and slowly made his way toward her. The result of the meeting between these two seemed evident. The man had gone. Never in his life had Hagar suffered more than in the past half hour. That this woman whom he loved—the only woman he had ever loved as a mature man loves—should be alone with the man who had made shipwreck of her best days set his veins on fire. She had once loved Mark Telford. Was it impossible that she should love him again? He tried to put the thought from him as ungenerous, unmanly, but there is a maggot which gets into men's brains at times, and it works its will in spite of them. He reasoned with himself. He recalled the look of perfect confidence and honesty with which she regarded him before they parted just now. He talked gayly to Baron and Mildred Margrave, told them to what different periods of architecture the ruins belonged, and by sheer force of will drove away a suspicion—a fear—as unreasonable as it was foolish. Yet, as he talked, the remembrance of the news he had to tell Mrs. Detlor, which might—probably would—be shipwreck to his hopes of marriage, came upon him, and presently made him silent, so that he wandered away from the others. He was concerned as to whether he should tell Mrs. Detlor at once what Baron had told him or hold it till next day, when she might, perhaps, be better prepared to hear it, though he could not help a smile at this, for would not any woman—ought not any woman to—be glad that her husband was alive? He would wait. He would see how she had borne the interview with Telford.

Presently he saw that Telford was gone. When he reached her, she was sitting, as he had often seen her, perfectly still, her hands folded in her lap upon her parasol, her features held in control, save that in her eyes was a bright, hot flame which so many have desired to see in the eyes of those they love and have not seen. The hunger of these is like the thirst of the people who waited for Moses to strike the rock.

He sat down without speaking. "He is gone," he said at last.

"Yes. Look at me and tell me if, from my face, you would think I had been seeing dreadful things." She smiled sadly at him.

"No, I could not think it. I see nothing more than a kind of sadness. The rest is all beauty."

"Oh, hush!" she replied solemnly. "Do not say those things now."

"I will not if you do not wish to hear them. What dreadful things have you seen?"

"You know so much you should know everything," she said, "at least all of what may happen."

Then she told him who Mildred Margrave was; how years before, when the girl's mother was very ill and it was thought she would die, the Margraves had taken the child and promised that she should be as their own and a companion to their own child; that their own child had died, and Mildred still remained with them. All this she knew from one who was aware of the circumstances. Then she went on to tell him who Mildred's mother and father were, what were Telford's relations to John Gladney and of his search for Gladney's wife.

"Now," she said, "you understand all. They must meet."

"He does not know who she is?"

"He does not. He only knows as yet that she is the daughter of Mrs. Gladney, who, he thinks, is a stranger to him."

"You know his nature. What will he do?"

"I cannot tell. What can he do? Nothing, nothing!"

"You are sorry for him? You"—

"Do not speak of that," she said in a choking whisper. "God gave women pity to keep men from becoming demons. You can pity the executioner when, killing you, he must kill himself next."

"I do not understand you quite, but all you say is wise."

"Do not try to understand it or me. I am not worth it."

"You are worth, God knows, a better, happier fate."

The words came from him unexpectedly, impulsively. Indirect as they were, she caught a hidden meaning. She put out her hand.

"You have something to tell me. Speak it. Say it quickly. Let me know it now. One more shock more or less cannot matter."

She had an intuition as to what it was. "I warn you, dear," he said, "that it will make a difference, a painful difference, between us."

"No, George"—it was the first time she had called him that—"nothing can make any difference with that."

He told her simply, bravely—she was herself so brave—what there was to tell, that two weeks ago her husband was alive, and that he was now on his way to England—perhaps in England itself. She took it with an unnatural quietness. She grew distressingly pale, but that was all. Her hand lay clinched tightly on the seat beside her. He reached out, took it, and pressed it, but she shook her head.

"Please do not sympathize with me," she said. "I cannot bear it. I am not adamant. You are very good—so good to me that no unhappiness can be all unhappiness. But let us look not one step farther into the future."

"What you wish I shall do always."

"Not what I wish, but what you and I ought to do is plain."

"I ask one thing only. I have said that I love you, said it as I shall never say it to another woman, as I never said it before. Say to me once here, before we know what the future will be, that you love me. Then I can bear all."

She turned and looked him full in the eyes, that infinite flame in her own which burns all passions into one. "I cannot, dear," she said.

Then she hurriedly rose, her features quivering. Without a word they went down the quiet path to the river and on toward the gates of the park where the coach was waiting to take them back to Herridon.

They did not see Mark Telford before their coach left. But, standing back in the shadow of the trees, he saw them. An hour before he had hated Hagar and had wished that they were in some remote spot alone with pistols in their hands. Now he could watch the two together without anger, almost without bitterness. He had lost in the game, and he was so much the true gamester that he could take his defeat when he knew it was defeat quietly. Yet the new defeat was even harder on him than the old. All through the years since he had seen her there had been the vague conviction, under all his determination to forget, that they would meet again, and that all might come right. That was gone, he knew, irrevocably.

"That's over," he said as he stood looking at them. "The king is dead. Long live the king!"

He lit a cigar and watched the coach drive away, then saw the coach in which he had come drive up also and its passengers mount. He did not stir, but smoked on. The driver waited for some time, and when he did not come drove away without him, to the regret of the passengers and to the indignation of Miss Mildred Margrave, who talked much of him during the drive back.

When they had gone, Telford rose and walked back to the ruined abbey. He went to the spot where he had first seen Mrs. Detlor that day, then took the path up the hillside to the place where they had stood. He took from his pocket the ring she had given back to him, read the words inside it slowly, and, looking at the spot where she had stood, said aloud:

"I met a man once who imagined he was married to the spirit of a woman living at the north pole. Well, I will marry myself to the ghost of Marion Conquest."

So saying, he slipped the ring on his little finger. The thing was fantastic, but he did it reverently; nor did it appear in the least as weakness, for his face was, strong and cold. "Till death us do part, so help me God!" he added.

He turned and wandered once more through the abbey, strayed in the grounds, and at last came to the park gates. Then he walked to the town a couple of miles away, went to the railway station and took a train for Herridon. He arrived there some time before the coach did. He went straight to the View House, proceeded to his room and sat down to write some letters. Presently he got up, went down to the office and asked the porter if Mrs. John Gladney had arrived from London. The porter said she had. He then felt in his pocket for a card, but changed his mind, saying to himself that his name would have no meaning for her. He took a piece of letter paper and wrote on it, "A friend of your husband brings a message to you." He put it in an envelope, and, addressing it, sent it up to her. The servant returned, saying that Mrs. Gladney had taken a sitting room in a house adjacent to the hotel and was probably there. He took the note and went to the place indicated, sent in the note and waited.

When Mrs. Gladney received the note, she was arranging the few knick-knacks she had brought. She read the note hurriedly and clinched it in her hand. "It is his writing—his, Mark Telford! He, my husband's friend! Good God!"

For a moment she trembled violently and ran her fingers through her golden hair distractedly, but she partly regained her composure, came forward and told the servant to show him into the room. She was a woman of instant determination. She drew the curtains closer, so that the room would be almost dark to one entering from the sunlight. Then she stood with her back to the light of the window. He saw a figure standing in the shadow, came forward and bowed, not at first looking closely at the face.

"I have come from your husband," he said. "My name is Mark Telford"—

"Yes, I know," she interrupted.

He started, came a little nearer and looked curiously at her. "Ida—Ida Royal!" he exclaimed. "Are you—you—John Gladney's wife?"

"He is my husband."

Telford folded his arms, and, though pale and haggard, held himself firmly. "I could not have wished this for my worst enemy," he said at last "Gladney and I have been more than brothers."

"In return for having"—

"Hush!" he interrupted. "Do you think anything you may say can make me feel worse than I do? I tell you we have lain under the same blankets month in, month out, and he saved my life."

"What is the message you bring?" she asked.

"He begs you to live with him again, you and your child. The property he settled on you for your lifetime he will settle on your child. Until this past few days he was himself poor. To-day he is rich—money got honestly, as you may guess."

"And if I am not willing to be reconciled?"

"There was no condition."

"Do you know all the circumstances? Did he tell you?"

"No, he did not tell me. He said that he left you suddenly for a reason, and when he wished to return you would not have him. That was all. He never spoke but kindly of you."

"He was a good man."

"He is a good man."

"I will tell you why he left me. He learned, no matter how, that I had not been married, as I said I had."

She looked up, as if expecting him to speak. He said nothing, but stood with eyes fixed on the floor.

"I admitted, too, that I kept alive the memory of a man who had played an evil part in my life; that I believed I cared for him still, more than for my husband."

"Ida, for God's sake, you do not mean"—

"Yes, I meant you then. But when he went away, when he proved himself so noble, I changed. I learned to hate the memory of the other man. But he came back too soon. I said things madly—things I did not mean. He went again. And then afterward I knew that I loved him."

"I am glad of that, upon my soul!" said Telford, letting go a long breath.

She smiled strangely and with a kind of hardness. "A few days ago I had determined to find him if I could, and to that end I intended to ask a man who had proved himself a friend, to learn, if possible, where he was in America. I came here to see him and my daughter."

"Who is the man?"

"Mr. George Hagar."

A strange light shot from Telford's eyes. "Hagar is a fortunate man," he said. Then dreamily: "You have a daughter. I wish to God that—that ours had lived."

"You did not seem to care when I wrote and told you that she was dead."

"I do not think that I cared then. Besides"—

"Besides you loved that other woman, and my child was nothing to you," she said with low scorn. "I have seen her in London. I am glad—glad that she hates you. I know she does," she added. "She would never forgive you. She was too good for you, and you ruined her life."

He was very quiet and spoke in a clear, meditative voice. "You are right. I think she hates me. But you are wrong, too, for she has forgiven me."

"You have seen her?" She eyed him sharply.

"Yes, to-day." His look wandered to a table whereon was a photograph of her daughter. He glanced at it keenly. A look of singular excitement sprang to his eyes. "That is your daughter?"

She inclined her head.

"How old is she?" He picked up the photograph and held it, scrutinizing it.

"She is seventeen," was the reply in a cold voice.

He turned a worn face from the picture to the woman. "She is my child. You lied to me."

"It made no difference to you then. Why should it make any difference now? Why should you take it so tragically?"

"I do not know, but now"—His head moved, his lips trembled.

"But now she is the daughter of John Gladney's wife. She is loved and cared for by people who are better, infinitely better, than her father and mother were or could be. She believes her father is dead. And he is dead!"

"My child! My child!" he whispered brokenly over the photograph. "You will tell her that her father is not dead. You"—

She interrupted. "Where is that philosophy which you preached to me, Mark Telford, when you said you were going to marry another woman and told me that we must part? Your child has no father. You shall not tell her. You will go away and never speak to her. Think of the situation. Spare her, if you do not spare me or your friend John Gladney."

He sat down in a chair, his clinched hands resting on his knees. He did not speak. She could see his shoulder shaking a little, and presently a tear dropped on his cheek.

But she did not stir. She was thinking of her child. "Had you not better go?" she said at last. "My daughter may come at any moment."

He rose and stood before her. "I had it all, and I have lost it all," he said. "Good-bye." He did not offer his hand.

"Good-bye. Where are you going?"

"Far enough away to forget," he replied in a shaking voice. He picked up the photograph, moved his hand over it softly as though he were caressing the girl herself, lifted it to his lips, put it down, and then silently left the room, not looking back.

He went to his rooms and sat writing for a long time steadily. He did not seem excited or nervous. Once or twice he got up and walked back and forth, his eyes bent on the floor. He was making calculations regarding the company he had floated in London and certain other matters. When he had finished writing, three letters lay sealed and stamped upon the table. One was addressed to John Gladney, one to the Hudson Bay company and one to a solicitor in London. There was another unsealed. This he put in his pocket. He took the other letters up, went downstairs and posted them. Then he asked the hall porter to order a horse for riding—the best mount in the stables—to be ready at the door in an hour. He again went to his room, put on a riding suit, came down and walked out across the esplanade and into the street where Hagar's rooms were. They were lighted. He went to the hall door, opened it quietly and entered the hall. He tapped at the door of Hagar's sitting room. As he did so a servant came out, and, in reply to a question, said that Mr. Hagar had gone to the Tempe hotel and would be back directly. He went in and sat down. The curtains were drawn back between the two rooms. He saw the easels, with their backs to the archway. He rose, went in and looked at the sketches in the dim light.

He started, flushed, and his lips drew back over his teeth with an animallike fierceness, but immediately he was composed again. He got two candles, brought them and set them on a stand between the easels. Then he sat down and studied the paintings attentively. He laughed once with a dry recklessness. "This tells her story admirably. He is equal to his subject. To be hung in the academy. Well, well!"

He heard the outer door open, then immediately Hagar entered the room and came forward to where he sat. The artist was astonished, and for the instant embarrassed. Telford rose. "I took the liberty of waiting for you, and, seeing the pictures, was interested."

Hagar bowed coldly. He waved his hand toward the pictures. "I hope you find them truthful."

"I find them, as I said, interesting. They will make a sensation. And is there anything more necessary? You are a lucky man, and you have the ability to take advantage of it. Yes, I greatly admire your ability. I can do that, at least, though we are enemies, I suppose."

His words were utterly without offense. A melancholy smile played on his lips. Again Hagar bowed, but did not speak.

Telford went on. "We are enemies, and yet I have done you no harm. You have injured me, have insulted me, and yet I do not resent it, which is strange, as my friends in a wilder country would tell you."

Hagar was impressed, affected. "How have I injured you? By painting these?"

"The injury is this: I loved a woman and wronged her, but not beyond reparation. Years passed. I saw her and loved her still. She might still have loved me, but another man came in. It was you. That was one injury. Then"—He took up a candle and held it to the sketch of the discovery. "This is perfect in its art and chivalry. It glorifies the girl. That is right." He held the candle above the second sketch. "This," he said, "is admirable as art and fiction. But it is fiction. I have no hope that you will change it. I think you would make a mistake to do so. You could not have the situation, if the truth were painted. Your audience will not have the villain as the injured man."

"Were you the injured man?"

Telford put the candle in Hagar's hand. Then he quickly took off his coat, waistcoat and collar and threw back his shirt from his neck behind.

"The bullet wound I received on that occasion was in the back," he said. "The other man tried to play the assassin. Here is the scar. He posed as the avenger, the hero, and the gentleman. I was called the coward and the vagabond! He married the girl."

He started to put on his waistcoat again. Hagar caught his arm and held it. The clasp was emotional and friendly. "Will you stand so for a moment?" he said. "Just so, that I may"—

"That you may paint in the truth? No. You are talking as the man. As an artist you were wise to stick to your first conception. It had the heat of inspiration. But I think you can paint me better than you have done, in these sketches. Come, I will give you a sitting. Get your brushes. No, no, I'll sit for nothing else than for these scenes as you have painted them. Don't miss your chance for fame."

Without a word Hagar went to work and sketched into the second sketch Telford's face as it now was in the candlelight—worn, strong, and with those watchful eyes sunk deep under the powerful brows. The artist in him became greater than the man. He painted in a cruel, sinister expression also. At last he paused. His hand trembled. "I can paint no more," he said.

Telford looked at the sketch with a cold smile. "Yes, that's right," he said. "You've painted in a good bit of the devil too. You owe me something for this. I have helped you to a picture and have given you a sitting. There is no reason why you should paint the truth to the world. But I ask you this: When you know that her husband is dead and she becomes your wife, tell her the truth about that, will you? How the scoundrel tried to kill me—from behind. I'd like to be cleared of cowardice some time. You can afford to do it. She loves you. You will have everything, I nothing—nothing at all."

There was a note so thrilling, a golden timbre to the voice, an indescribable melancholy so affecting that Hagar grasped the other's hand and said, "So help me God, I will!"

"All right."

He prepared to go. At the door Hagar said to him, "Shall I see you again?"

"Probably in the morning. Good-night."

Telford went back to the hotel and found the horse he had ordered at the door. He got up at once. People looked at him curiously, it was peculiar to see a man riding at night for pleasure, and, of course, it could be for no other purpose. "When will you be back, sir?" said the groom.

"I do not know." He slipped a coin into the groom's hand. "Sit up for me. The beast is a good one?"

"The best we have. Been a hunter, sir."

Telford nodded, stroked the horse's neck and started. He rode down toward the gate. He saw Mildred Margrave coming toward him.

"Oh, Mr. Telford!" she said. "You forsook us to-day, which was unkind. Mamma says—she has seen you, she tells me—that you are a friend of my stepfather, Mr. Gladney. That's nice, for I like you ever so much, you know." She raised her warm, intelligent eyes to his. "I've felt since you came yesterday that I'd seen you before, but mamma says that's impossible. You don't remember me?"

"I didn't remember you," he said.

"I wish I were going for a ride, too, in the moonlight. I mean mamma and I and you. You ride as well as you drive, of course."

"I wish you were going with me," he replied.—He suddenly reached down his hand. "Good-night" Her hand was swallowed in his firm clasp for a moment "God bless you, dear!" he added, then raised his hat quickly and was gone.

"I must have reminded him of some one," the girl said to herself. "He said, 'God bless you, dear!'"

About that time Mrs. Detlor received a telegram from the doctor of a London hospital. It ran:

Your husband here. Was badly injured in a channel collision last night. Wishes to see you.

There was a train leaving for London a half hour later. She made ready hastily, inclosed the telegram in an envelope addressed to George Hagar, and, when she was starting, sent it over to his rooms. When he received it, he caught up a time table, saw that a train would leave in a few minutes, ran out, but could not get a cab quickly, and arrived at the station only to see the train drawing away. "Perhaps it is better so," he said, "for her sake."

That night the solitary roads about Herridon were traveled by a solitary horseman, riding hard. Mark Telford's first ambition when a child was to ride a horse. As a man he liked horses almost better than men. The cool, stirring rush of wind on his face as he rode was the keenest of delights. He was enjoying the ride with an iron kind of humor, for there was in his thoughts a picture. "The sequel's sequel for Hagar's brush to-morrow," he said as he paused on the top of a hill to which he had come from the highroad and looked round upon the verdant valleys almost spectrally quiet in the moonlight. He got off his horse and took out a revolver. It clicked in his hand.

"No," he said, putting it up again, "not here. It would be too damned rough on the horse, after riding so hard, to leave him out all night."

He mounted again. He saw before him a fine stretch of moor at an easy ascent. He pushed the horse on, taking a hedge or two as he went. The animal came over the highest point of the hill at full speed. Its blood was up, like its master's. The hill below this point suddenly ended in a quarry. Neither horse nor man knew it until the yielding air cried over their heads like water over a drowning man as they fell to the rocky bed far beneath.

An hour after Telford became conscious. The horse was breathing painfully and groaning beside him. With his unbroken arm he felt for his revolver. It took him a long time.

"Poor beast!" he said, and pushed the hand out toward the horse's head. In an instant the animal was dead.

He then drew the revolver to his own temple, but paused. "No, it wasn't to be," he said. "I'm a dead man anyway," and fell back.

Day was breaking when the agony ceased. He felt the gray damp light on his eyes, though he could not see He half raised his head. "God—bless—you, dear!" he said. And that ended it.

He was found by the workers at the quarry. In Herridon to this day—it all happened years ago—they speak of the Hudson Bay company's man who made that terrible leap, and, broken all to pieces himself, had heart enough to put his horse out of misery. The story went about so quickly, and so much interest was excited because the Hudson Bay company sent an officer down to bury him, and the new formed Aurora company was represented by two or three titled directors, that Mark Telford's body was followed to its grave by hundreds of people. It was never known to the public that he had contemplated suicide. Only John Gladney and the Hudson Bay company knew that for certain.

The will, found in his pocket, left everything he owned to Mildred Margrave—that is, his interest in the Aurora mines of Lake Superior, which pays a gallant dividend. The girl did not understand why this was, but supposed it was because he was a friend of John Gladney, her stepfather, and perhaps (but this she never said) because she reminded him of some one. Both she and John Gladney when they are in England go once a year to Herridon, and they are constantly sending flowers there.

Alpheus Richmond showed respect for him by wearing a silk sash under his waistcoat, and Baron by purchasing shares in the Aurora company.

When Mark Telford lay dead, George Hagar tried to take from his finger the ring which carried the tale of his life and death inside it, but the hand was clinched so that it could not be opened. Two years afterward, when he had won his fame through two pictures called "The Discovery" and "The Sequel," he told his newly married wife of this. And he also cleared Mark Telford's name of cowardice in her sight, for which she was grateful.

It is possible that John Gladney and George Hagar understood Mark Telford better than the woman who once loved him. At least they think so.

THE END