"You remember the man in Paris who used to follow me about—Meysey Hill they called him?"

He nodded.

"Miserable bounder," he murmured. "Turned out to be an impostor, too."

"He imposed on me," Annabel continued. "I believed that he was the great multi-millionaire. He worried me to marry him. I let him take me to the English Embassy, and we went through some sort of a ceremony. I thought it would be magnificent to have a great house in Paris, and more money than any other woman. Afterwards we started for dejeuner in a motor. On the way he confessed. He was not Meysey Hill, but an Englishman of business, and he had only a small income. Every one took him for the millionaire, and he had lost his head about me. I—well, I lost my temper. I struck him across the face, twisted the steering wheel of the motor, sprang out myself, and left him for dead on the road with the motor on top of him. This is the first act."

"Served the beast right," Ennison declared. "I think I can tell you something which may be very good news for you presently. But go on."

"Act two," she continued. "Enter Sir John, very honest, very much in love with me. I thought that Hill was dead, but I was frightened, and I wanted to get away from Paris. Sir John heard gossip about us—about Anna the recluse, a paragon of virtue, and Annabel alias 'Alcide' a dancer at the cafes chantants, and concerning whom there were many stories which were false, and a few—which were true. I—well, I borrowed Anna's name. I made her my unwilling confederate. Sir John followed me to London and married me. To this day he and every one else thinks that he married Anna.

"Act three. Anna comes to London. She is poor, and she will take nothing from my husband, the man she had deceived for my sake, and he, on his part, gravely disapproves of her as 'Alcide.' She tries every way of earning a living and fails. Then she goes to a dramatic agent. Curiously enough nothing will persuade him that she is not 'Alcide.' He believes that she denies it simply because owing to my marriage with Sir John, whom they call the 'Puritan Knight,' she wants to keep her identity secret. He forces an engagement upon her. She never calls herself 'Alcide.' It is the Press who find her out. She is the image of what I was like, and she has a better voice. Then enter Mr. Hill again—alive. He meets Anna, and claims her as his wife. It is Anna again who stands between me and ruin."

"I cannot let you go on," Ennison interrupted. "I believe that I can give you great news. Tell me where the fellow Hill took you for this marriage ceremony."

"It was behind the Place de Vendome, on the other side from the Ritz."

"I knew it," Ennison exclaimed. "Cheer up, Annabel. You were never married at all. That place was closed by the police last month. It was a bogus affair altogether, kept by some blackguard or other of an Englishman. Everything was done in the most legal and imposing way, but the whole thing was a fraud."

"Then I was never married to him at all?" Annabel said.

"Never—but, by Jove, you had a narrow escape," Ennison exclaimed. "Annabel, I begin to see why you are here. Think! Had you not better hurry back before Sir John discovers? You are his wife right enough. You can tell me the rest another time."

She smiled faintly.

"The rest," she said, holding tightly to his hands, "is the most important of all. You came to me, you wished me to speak to Anna. I went to her rooms to-night. There was no one at home, and I was coming away when I saw that the door was open. I decided to go in and wait. In her sitting-room I found Montague Hill. He had gained admission somehow, and he too was waiting for Anna. But—he was cleverer than any of you. He knew me, Nigel. 'At last,' he cried, 'I have found you!' He would listen to nothing. He swore that I was his wife, and—I shot him, Nigel, as his arms were closing around me. Shot him, do you hear?"

"Good God!" he exclaimed, looking at her curiously. "Is this true, Annabel? Is he dead?"

She nodded.

"I shot him. I saw the blood come as he rolled over. I tore the marriage certificate from his pocket and burnt it. And then I came here."

"You came—here!" he repeated, vaguely.

"Nigel, Nigel," she cried. "Don't you understand? It is I whom you cared for in Paris, not Anna. She is a stranger to you. You cannot care for her. Think of those days in Paris. Do you remember when we went right away, Nigel, and forgot everything? We went down the river past Veraz, and the larks were singing all over those deep brown fields, and the river further on wound its way like a coil of silver across the rich meadowland, and along the hillside vineyards. Oh, the scent of the flowers that day, the delicious quiet, the swallows that dived before us in the river. Nigel! You have not forgotten. It was the first day you kissed me, under the willows, coming into Veraz. Nigel, you have not forgotten!"

"No," he said, with a little bitter smile. "I have never forgotten."

She suddenly caught hold of his shoulders and drew him down towards her.

"Nigel, don't you understand. I must leave England to-night. I must go somewhere into hiding, a long, long way off. I killed him, Nigel. They will say that it was murder. But if only you will come I do not care."

He shook her hands off almost roughly. He stood away from her. She listened with dumb fear in her eyes.

"Listen, Annabel," he said hoarsely. "We played at love-making in Paris. It was very pretty and very dainty while it lasted, but we played it with our eyes open, and we perfectly understood the game—both of us. Other things came. We went our ways. There was no broken faith—not even any question of anything of the sort. I met you here as Lady Ferringhall. We have played at a little mild love-making again. It has been only the sort of nonsense which passes lightly enough between half the men and women in London. You shall know the truth. I do not love you. I have never loved you. I call myself a man of the world, a man of many experiences, but I never knew what love meant—until I met your sister."

"You love—Anna?" she exclaimed.

"I do," he answered. "I always shall. Now if you are ready to go with me, I too am ready. We will go to Ostend by the early morning boat and choose a hiding place from there. I will marry you when Sir John gets his divorce, and I will do all I can to keep you out of harm. But you had better know the truth to start with. I will do all this not because I love you, but—because you are Anna's sister."

Annabel rose to her feet.

"You are magnificent," she said, "but the steel of your truth is a little oversharpened. It cuts. Will you let your servant call me a hansom," she continued, opening the door before he could reach her side. "I had no idea that it was so abominably late."

He scarcely saw her face again. She pulled her veil down, and he knew that silence was best.

"Where to?" he asked, as the hansom drove up.

"Home, of course," she answered. "Eight, Cavendish Square."



Chapter XXVI

ANNABEL IS WARNED

"You!"

David Courtlaw crossed the floor of the dingy little sitting-room with outstretched hands.

"You cannot say that you did not expect me," he answered. "I got Sydney's telegram at ten o'clock, and caught the ten-thirty from the Gare du Nord."

"It is very nice of you," Anna said softly.

"Rubbish!" he answered. "I could not have stayed in Paris and waited for news. Tell me exactly what has happened. Even now I do not understand. Is this man Hill dead?"

She shook her head.

"He was alive at four o'clock this afternoon," she answered, "but the doctors give little hope of his recovery."

"What is there to be feared?" he asked her quietly.

She hesitated.

"You are my friend," she said, "if any one is. I think that I will tell you. The man Hill has persecuted me for months—ever since I have been in England. He claimed me for his wife, and showed to every one a marriage certificate. He shot at me at the 'Unusual,' and the magistrates bound him over to keep the peace. I found him once in my rooms, and I believe that he had a key to my front door. Last night Mr. Brendon and I returned from the 'Unusual,' and found him lying in my room shot through the lungs. In the grate were some charred fragments of a marriage certificate. We fetched the doctor and the police. From the first I could see that neither believed my story. I am suspected of having shot the man."

"But that is ridiculous!" he exclaimed.

She laughed a little bitterly.

"I am under police surveillance," she said. "So is Mr. Brendon."

"But there is not a shadow of evidence against you," he objected. "The man alone could supply any, and if he recovers sufficiently to say anything, what he would say would exonerate you."

"Yes."

There was a moment's silence. Anna's face was half turned from him, but her expression, and the tone of her monosyllable puzzled him. He stepped quickly towards her. Her eyes seemed to be looking backwards. She distinctly shivered as he forced her to look at him. He was bewildered.

"Anna!" he exclaimed hoarsely. "Look at me. What is it? Good God!"

An unhappy little smile parted her lips. She clenched her hands together and leaned forward in her chair, gazing steadily into the fire.

"I think," she said, "that I will tell you everything. I must tell somebody—and you would understand."

"I am your friend," he said slowly, "whatever you may have to tell me. You can trust me, Anna. You know that. I will be as silent as the grave."

"Not long ago," she said, "you left me in anger, partly because of this exchange of identities between Annabel and myself. You said that it would bring trouble. It has."

"Yes."

"Annabel's real reason for wishing to leave Paris, the real reason she married Sir John Ferringhall, was because of a very foolish thing which she did. It was—in connection with this man Hill. He personated over there a millionaire named Meysey Hill, and it seems that he induced Annabel to go through some sort of marriage with him at the Embassy."

"Where?" Courtlaw asked quickly.

"In Paris."

Courtlaw seemed about to say something. He changed his mind however, and simply motioned to her to proceed.

"Then there was a motor accident only an hour or so after this ceremony, and Hill was reported to be killed. Annabel believed it, came to England and married Sir John. Now you can understand why I have been obliged to——"

"Yes, yes, I understand that," Courtlaw interrupted. "But about last night."

"Annabel knew where I lived," Anna continued slowly. "She has been to my flat before. I saw her come out from the flat buildings two minutes before we entered it last night. I picked up her handkerchief on the floor."

"You mean—you think——"

"Hush! I think that he was concealed in my room, and Annabel and he met there. What passed between them I cannot think—I dare not. The pistol was his own, it is true, but it was one which was taken from him when he forced his way in upon me before. Now you can understand why every minute is a torture to me. It is not for myself I fear. But if he speaks—I fear what he may tell."

"You have been to her?" he asked.

"I dare not," she answered.

"I will go," he said. "She must be warned. She had better escape if she can."

Anna shook her head.

"She will take her risk," she answered. "I am sure of it. If he recovers he may not accuse her. If he dies she is safe."

He paced the room for a minute or two restlessly.

"There are some people," he said at last, "who seem fated to carry on their shoulders the burdens of other people. You, Anna, are one of them. I know in Paris you pinched and scraped that your sister might have the dresses and entertainments she desired. You fell in at once with her quixotic and damnable scheme of foisting her reputation and her follies upon your shoulders whilst she marries a rich man and commences all over again a life of selfish pleasure. You on the other hand have to come to London, a worker, with the responsibility of life upon your own shoulders—and in addition all the burden of her follies."

"You forget," she said, looking up at him with a faint smile, "that under the cloak of her name I am earning more money a week than I could ever have earned in a year by my own labours."

"It is an accident," he answered. "Besides, it is not so. You sing better than Annabel ever did, you have even a better style. 'Alcide' or no 'Alcide,' there is not a music hall manager in London or Paris who would not give you an engagement on your own merits."

"Perhaps not," she answered. "And yet in a very few weeks I shall have done with it all. Do you think that I shall ever make an actress, my friend?"

"I doubt it," he answered bluntly. "You have not feeling enough."

She smiled at him.

"It is like old times," she said, "to hear these home truths. All the same, I don't admit it."

He shook his head.

"To be an actress," he said, "you require a special and peculiar temperament. I do not believe that there has ever lived a really great actress whose moral character from the ordinary point of view would bear inspection."

"Then I," she said, "have too much character."

"Too much character, and too little sentiment," he answered. "Too much sensibility and too cold a heart. Too easily roused emotions and too little passion. How could you draw the curtain aside which hides the great and holy places of life—you, who have never loved?"

"You have become French to the core," she murmured. "You would believe that life is kindled by the passions alone."

There was silence between them. Then a servant girl brought in a telegram. Anna tore it open and passed it to Courtlaw. It was from Brendon.

"Hill gradually recovering consciousness. Doctor says depositions to-night. Recovery impossible.—BRENDON."

He looked at her gravely.

"I think," he said, "that some one ought to warn her."

"It is Number 8, Cavendish Square," she answered simply.

* * * * *

Courtlaw found himself ushered without questions into Annabel's long low drawing-room, fragrant with flowers and somewhat to his surprise, crowded with guests. From the further end of the apartment came the low music of a violin. Servants were passing backwards and forwards with tea and chocolate. For a moment he did not recognize Annabel. Then she came a few steps to meet him.

"Mr. Courtlaw, is it not," she remarked, with lifted eyebrows. "Really it is very kind of you to have found me out."

He was bereft of words for a moment, and in that moment she escaped, having passed him on deftly to one of the later arrivals.

"Lady Mackinnor," she said, "I am sure that you must have heard of Mr. David Courtlaw. Permit me to make him known to you—Mr. Courtlaw—Lady Mackinnor."

With a murmured word of excuse she glided away, and Courtlaw, who had come with a mission which seemed to him to be one of life or death, was left to listen to the latest art jargon from Chelsea. He bore it as long as he could, watching all the time with fascinated eyes Annabel moving gracefully about amongst her guests, always gay, with a smile and a whisper for nearly everybody. Grudgingly he admired her. To him she had always appeared as a mere pleasure-loving parasite—something quite insignificant. He had pictured her, if indeed she had ever had the courage to do this thing, as sitting alone, convulsed with guilty fear, starting at her own shadow, a slave to constant terror. And instead he found her playing the great lady, and playing it well. She knew, or guessed his mission too, for more than once their eyes met, and she laughed mockingly at him. At last he could bear it no longer. He left his companion in the midst of a glowing eulogy of Bastien Leparge, and boldly intercepted his hostess as she moved from one group to join another.

"Can you spare me a moment?" he asked. "I have a message from your sister."

"Are you in a hurry," she asked carelessly. "A lot of these people will be going presently."

"My message is urgent," he said firmly. "If you cannot listen to me now it must remain undelivered."

She shrugged her shoulders and led him towards a small recess. "So you come from Anna, do you?" she remarked. "Well, what is it?"

"Montague Hill is recovering consciousness," he said. "He will probably make a statement to-night."

"That sounds very interesting," she answered coolly. "Perhaps I should better be able to understand its significance if you would explain to me who Mr. Montague Hill is."

"Your husband," he answered bluntly.

She did not wince. She laughed a little contemptuously.

"You and Anna," she said, "seem to have stumbled upon a mare's nest. If that is my sister's message, pray return to her and say that the doings and sayings of Mr. Montague Hill do not interest me in the least."

"Don't be foolish," he said sharply. "You were seen to leave the flat, and your handkerchief was found there. Very likely by this time the whole truth is known."

She smiled at him, an understanding smile, but her words defied him.

"What a beautiful mare's nest!" she exclaimed. "I can see you and Anna groaning and nodding your grave heads together. Bah! She does not know me very well, and you—not at all. Do have some tea, won't you? If you must, go then."

Courtlaw was dismissed. As he passed out he saw in the hall a quietly dressed man with keen grey eyes, talking to one of the footmen. He shivered and looked behind as he stepped into his hansom. Had it come already?



Chapter XXVII

JOHN FERRINGHAM, GENTLEMAN

"Confess, my dear husband," Annabel said lightly, "that you are bewildered."

Sir John smiled.

"My dear Anna," he answered. "To tell you the truth, it has seemed just lately as though we were becoming in some measure estranged. You certainly have not shown much desire for my society, have you?"

"You have been wrapped up in your politics," she murmured.

He shook his head.

"There have been other times," he said a little sadly.

Her little white hand stole across the table. There was a look in her eyes which puzzled him.

"I have been very selfish," she declared. "But you must forgive me, John."

"I would forgive you a great deal more," he answered readily, "for the sake of an evening like this. You have actually given up a dinner-party to dine alone with me."

"And made you give up a political meeting," she reminded him.

"Quite an unimportant one," he assured her. "I would have given up anything to see you your old self again—as you are this evening."

"I am afraid I have not been very nice," she said sadly. "Never mind. You must think of this evening, John, sometimes—as a sort of atonement."

"I hope," he answered, looking at her in some surprise, "that we shall have many more such to think about."

They were lingering over their dessert. The servants had left the room. Annabel half filled her glass with wine, and taking a little folded packet from her plate, shook the contents into it.

"I am developing ailments," she said, meeting his questioning eyes. "It is nothing of any importance. John, I have something to say to you."

"If you want to ask a favour," he remarked smiling, "you have made it almost impossible for me to refuse you anything."

"I am going to ask more than a favour," she said slowly. "I am going to ask for your forgiveness."

He was a little uneasy.

"I do not know what you mean," he said, "but if you are referring to any little coolness since our marriage let us never speak of it again. I am something of an old fogey, Anna, I'm afraid, but if you treat me like this you will teach me to forget it."

Annabel looked intently into her glass.

"John," she said, "I am afraid that I am going to make you unhappy. I am very, very sorry, but you must listen to me."

He relapsed into a stony silence. A few feet away, across the low vases of pink and white roses, sat Annabel, more beautiful to-night perhaps than ever before in her life. She wore a wonderful dress of turquoise blue, made by a great dressmaker for a function which she knew very well now that she would never attend. Her hair once more was arranged with its old simplicity. There was a new softness in her eyes, a hesitation, a timidity about her manner which was almost pathetic.

"You remember our first meeting?"

"Yes," he answered hoarsely. "I remember it very well indeed. You have the look in your eyes to-night which you had that day, the look of a frightened child."

She looked into her glass.

"I was frightened then," she declared. "I am frightened now. But it is all very different. There was hope for me then. Now there is none. No, none at all."

"You talk strangely, Anna," he said. "Go on!"

"People talked to you in Paris about us," she continued, "about Anna the virtuous and Annabel the rake. You were accused of having been seen with the latter. You denied it, remembering that I had called myself Anna. You went even to our rooms and saw my sister. Anna lied to you, I lied to you. I was Annabel the rake, 'Alcide' of the music halls. My name is Annabel, not Anna. Do you understand?"

"I do not," he answered. "How could I, when your sister sings now at the 'Unusual' every night and the name 'Alcide' flaunts from every placard in London?"

"The likeness between us," she said, "before I began to disfigure myself with rouge and ill-dressed hair, was remarkable. Anna failed in her painting, our money was gone, and she was forced to earn her own living. She came to London, and tried several things without any success."

"But why——"

Sir John stopped short. With a moment of inward shame he remembered his deportment towards Anna. It was scarcely likely that she would have accepted his aid. Some one had once, in his hearing, called him a prig. He remembered it suddenly. He thought of his severe attitude towards the girl who was rightly and with contempt refusing his measured help. He looked across at Annabel, and he groaned. This was his humiliation as well as hers.

"Anna of course would not accept any money from us," she continued. "She tried everything, and last of all she tried the stage. She went to a dramatic agent, and he turned out to be the one who had heard me sing in Paris. He refused to believe that Anna was not 'Alcide.' He thought she wished to conceal her identity because of the connexion with you, and he offered her an engagement at once. She was never announced as 'Alcide,' but directly she walked on she simply became 'Alcide' to every one. She had a better voice than I, and the rest I suppose is only a trick. The real 'Alcide'," she wound up with a faint smile across the table at him, "is here."

He sat like a man turned to stone. Some part of the stiff vigour of the man seemed to have subsided. He seemed to have shrunken in his seat. His eyes were fixed upon her face, but he opened his lips twice before he spoke.

"When you married me——"

Her little hand flashed out across the table.

"John," she said, "I can spare you that question. I had been about as foolish and selfish as a girl could be. I had done the most compromising things, and behaved in the most ridiculous way. But from the rest—you saved me."

Sir John breathed a long deep sigh. He sat up in his chair again, the colour came back to his cheeks.

"John, don't!" she cried. "You think that this is all. You are going to be generous and forgive. It isn't all. There is worse to come. There is a tragedy to come."

"Out with it, then," he cried, almost roughly. "Don't you know, child, that this is torture for me? What in God's name more can you have to tell me?"

Her face had become almost like a marble image. She spoke with a certain odd deliberation carefully chosen words which fell like drops of ice upon the man who sat listening.

"Before I met you I was deluded into receiving upon friendly terms a man named Hill, who passed himself off as Meysey Hill the railway man, but who was in reality an Englishman in poor circumstances. He was going to settle I forget how many millions upon me, and I think that I was dazzled. I went with him to what I supposed to be the British Embassy, and went through a ceremony which I understood to be the usual form of the marriage one used there. Afterwards we started for a motor ride to a place outside Paris for dejeuner, and I suppose the man's nerve failed him. I questioned him too closely about his possessions, and remarked upon the fact that he was a most inexpert driver, although Meysey Hill had a great reputation as a motorist. Anyhow he confessed that he was a fraud. I struck him across the face, jumped out and went back by train to Paris. He lost control of the machine, was upset and nearly killed."

"Did you say," Sir John asked, "that the man's name was Hill?"

"Yes," she answered.

"The man who was found dead in your sister's room was named Hill?"

"It is the man," she answered. "I killed him."

Sir John clutched at the table with both hands. A slow horror was dawning in his fixed eyes. This was not the sort of confession which he had been expecting. Annabel had spoken calmly enough and steadily, but his brain refused at first to accept the full meaning of her words. It seemed to him that a sort of mist had risen up between them. Everything was blurred. Only her face was clear, frail and delicate, almost flower-like, with the sad haunting eyes ever watching his. Annabel a murderess! It was not possible.

"Child!" he cried. "You do not know what you say. This is part of a dream—some evil fancy. Think! You could not have done it."

She shook her head deliberately, hopelessly.

"I think that I know very well what I am saying," she answered. "I went to Anna's rooms because I felt that I must see her. He was there concealed, waiting her return. He recognized me at once, and he behaved like a madman. He swore that I was his wife, that chance had given me to him at last. John, he was between me and the door. A strong coarse man, and there were things in his eyes which made my blood run cold with terror. He came over to me. I was helpless. Beside me on Anna's table was a pistol. I was not even sure whether it was loaded. I snatched it up, pointed it blindly at him, and fired."

"Ah!" Sir John exclaimed.

"He fell over at my feet," she continued. "I saw him stagger and sink down, and the pistol was smoking still in my hand. I bent over him. Anna had told me that he carried always with him this bogus marriage certificate. I undid his coat, and I took it from his pocket. I burned it."

"But the marriage itself?" Sir John asked. "I do not understand."

"There was no marriage," she answered. "I was very foolish to have been deceived even for a moment. There was no marriage, and I hated, oh, how I hated the man."

"Did any one see you leave the flat?" he asked.

"I do not know. But David Courtlaw has been here. To-night they say he will be conscious. He will say who it was. So there is no escape. And listen, John."

"Well?"

"I went from Anna's flat to Nigel Ennison's rooms. I told him the truth. I asked him to take me away, and hide me. He refused. He sent me home."

Sir John's head bent lower and lower. There was nothing left now of the self-assured, prosperous man of affairs. His shoulders were bent, his face was furrowed with wrinkles. He looked no longer at his wife. His eyes were fixed upon the tablecloth.

There was a gentle rustling of skirts. Softly she rose to her feet. He felt her warm breath upon his cheek, the perfume of her hair as she leaned over him. He did not look up, so he did not know that in her other hand she held a glass of wine.

"Dear husband," she murmured. "I am so very, very sorry. I have brought disgrace upon you, and I haven't been the right sort of wife at all. But it is all over now, and presently there will be some one else. I should like to have had you forgive me."

He did not move. He seemed to be thinking hard. She paused for a moment. Then she raised the glass nearer to her lips.

"Good-bye, John," she said simply.

Something in her tone made him look up. In a second the glass lay shattered upon the carpet. There was a stain of wine upon her dress.

"God in Heaven, Annabel!" he cried. "What were you doing?"

Her voice was a little hysterical. Her unnatural calm was giving way.

"It was poison—why not?" she answered. "Who is there to care and—John."

His arms were around her. He kissed her once on the lips with a passion of which, during all their days of married life, he had given no sign.

"You poor little girl!" he cried. "Forgive you, indeed. There isn't a husband breathing, Annabel, who wouldn't have blessed that pistol in your hands, and prayed God that the bullet might go straight. It is no crime, none at all. It is one of God's laws that a woman may defend her honour, even with the shedding of blood. While you talked I was only making our plans. It was necessary to think, and think quickly."

She was altogether hysterical now.

"But I—I went to Nigel Ennison for help. I asked him—to take me away."

She saw him flinch, but he gave no sign of it in his tone.

"Perhaps," he said, "I have been to blame. It must be my fault that you have not learnt that your husband is the man to come to—at such a time as this. Oh, I think I understand, Annabel. You were afraid of me, afraid that I should have been shocked, afraid of the scandal. Bah. Little woman, you have been brave enough before. Pull yourself together now. Drink this!"

He poured out a glass of wine with a firm hand, and held it to her lips. She drank it obediently.

"Good," he said, as he watched the colour come back to her cheeks. "Now listen. You go to your room and ring for your maid. I received a telegram, as you know, during dinner. It contains news of the serious illness of a near relation at Paris. Your maid has twenty minutes to pack your dressing case for one night, and you have the same time to change into a travelling dress. In twenty minutes we meet in the hall, remember. I will tell you our plans on the way to the station."

"But you," she exclaimed, "you are not coming. There is the election——"

He laughed derisively.

"Election be hanged!" he exclaimed. "Don't be childish, Annabel. We are off for a second honeymoon. Just one thing more. We may be stopped. Don't look so frightened. You called yourself a murderess. You are nothing of the sort. What you did is called manslaughter, and at the worst there is only a very slight penalty, nothing to be frightened about in the least. Remember that."

She kissed him passionately, and ran lightly upstairs. In the hall below she could hear his firm voice giving quick commands to the servants.



Chapter XXVIII

THE HISSING OF "ALCIDE"

There was a strange and ominous murmur of voices, a shuffling of feet in the gallery, a silence, which was like the silence before a storm. Anna, who had sung the first verse of her song, looked around the house, a little surprised at the absence of the applause which had never yet failed her. She realized in a moment what had happened. Even though the individual faces of her audience were not to be singled out, she had been conscious from the first moment of her appearance that something was wrong. She hesitated, and for a moment thought of omitting her second verse altogether. The manager, however, who stood in the wings, nodded to her to proceed, and the orchestra commenced the first few bars of the music. Then the storm broke. A long shrill cat-call in the gallery seemed to be the signal. Then a roar of hisses. They came from every part, from the pit, the circle and the gallery, even from the stalls. And there arose too, a background of shouts.

"Who killed her husband?"

"Go and nurse him, missus!"

"Murderess!"

Anna looked from left to right. She was as pale as death, but she seemed to have lost the power of movement. They shouted to her from the wings to come off. She could not stir hand or foot. A paralyzing horror was upon her. Her eardrums were burning with the echoes of those hideous shouts. A crumpled-up newspaper thrown from the gallery hit her upon the cheek. The stage manager came out from the wings, and taking her hand led her off. There was more shouting.

The stage manager reappeared presently, and made a speech. He regretted—more deeply than he could say—the occurrence of this evening. He fancied that when they had had time to reflect, they would regret it still more. ("No, no.") They had shown themselves grossly ignorant of facts. They had chosen to deliberately and wickedly insult a lady who had done her best to entertain them for many weeks. He could not promise that she would ever appear again in that house. ("Good job.") Well, they might say that, but he knew very well that before long they would regret it. Of his own certain knowledge he could tell them that. For his own part he could not sufficiently admire the pluck of this lady, who, notwithstanding all that she had been through, had chosen to appear this evening rather than break her engagement. He should never sufficiently be able to regret the return which they had made to her. He begged their attention for the next turn.

He had spoken impressively, and most likely Anna, had she reappeared, would have met with a fair reception. She, however, had no idea of doing anything of the sort. She dressed rapidly and left the theatre without a word to any one. The whole incident was so unexpected that neither Courtlaw nor Brendon were awaiting. The man who sat behind a pigeon-hole, and regulated the comings and goings, was for a moment absent. Anna stood on the step and looked up and down the street for a hansom. Suddenly she felt her wrist grasped by a strong hand. It was Ennison, who loomed up through the shadows.

"Anna! Thank God I have found you at last. But you have not finished surely. Your second turn is not over, is it?"

She laughed a little hardly. Even now she was dazed. The horror of those few minutes was still with her.

"Have you not heard?" she said. "For me there is no second turn. I have said good-bye to it all. They hissed me!"

"Beasts!" he muttered. "But was it wise to sing to-night?"

"Why not? The man was nothing to me."

"You have not seen the evening paper?"

"No. What about them?"

He called a hansom.

"They are full of the usual foolish stories. To-morrow they will all be contradicted. To-night all London believes that he was your husband."

"That is why they hissed me, then?"

"Of course. To-morrow they will know the truth."

She shivered.

"Is this hansom for me?" she said. "Thank you—and good-bye."

"I am coming with you," he said firmly.

She shook her head.

"Don't!" she begged.

"You are in trouble," he said. "No one has a better right than I to be with you."

"You have no right at all," she answered coldly.

"I have the right of the man who loves you," he declared. "Some day you will be my wife, and it would not be well for either of us to remember that in these unhappy days you and I were separated."

Anna gave her address to the driver. She leaned back in the cab with half-closed eyes.

"This is all madness," she declared wearily. "Do you think it is fair of you to persecute me just now?"

"It is not persecution, Anna," he answered gently. "Only you are the woman I love, and you are in trouble. And you are something of a heroine, too. You see, my riddle is solved. I know all."

"You know all?"

"Your sister has told me."

"You have seen her—since last night?"

"Yes."

Anna shivered a little. She asked no further questions for the moment. Ennison himself, with the recollection of Annabel's visit still fresh in his mind, was for a moment constrained and ill at ease. When they reached her rooms she stepped lightly out upon the pavement.

"Now you must go," she said firmly. "I have had a trying evening and I need rest."

"You need help and sympathy more, Anna," he pleaded, "and I have the right, yes I have the right to offer you both. I will not be sent away."

"It is my wish to be alone," she said wearily. "I can say no more."

She turned and fitted the latchkey into the door. He hesitated for a moment and then he followed her. She turned the gas up in her little sitting-room, and sank wearily into an easy chair. On the mantelpiece in front of her was a note addressed to her in Annabel's handwriting. She looked at it with a little shudder, but she made no motion to take it.

"Will you say what you have to say, please, and go. I am tired, and I want to be alone."

He came and stood on the hearthrug close to her.

"Anna," he said, "you make it all indescribably hard for me. Will you not remember what has passed between us? I have the right to take my place by your side."

"You have no right at all," she answered. "Further than that, I am amazed that you should dare to allude to those few moments, to that single moment of folly. If ever I could bring myself to ask you any favour, I would ask you to forget even as I have forgotten."

"Why in Heaven's name should I forget?" he cried. "I love you, Anna, and I want you for my wife. There is nothing but your pride which stands between us."

"There is great deal more," she answered coldly. "For one thing I am going to marry David Courtlaw."

He stepped back as though he had received a blow.

"It is not possible," he exclaimed.

"Why not?"

"Because you are mine. You have told me that you cared. Oh, you cannot escape from it. Anna, my love, you cannot have forgotten so soon."

He fancied that she was yielding, but her eyes fell once more upon that fatal envelope, and her tone when she spoke was colder than ever.

"That was a moment of madness," she said. "I was lonely. I did not know what I was saying."

"I will have your reason for this," he said. "I will have your true reason."

She looked at him for a moment with fire in her eyes.

"You need a reason. Ask your own conscience. What sort of a standard of life yours may be I do not know, yet in your heart you know very well that every word you have spoken to me has been a veiled insult, every time you have come into my presence has been an outrage. That is what stands between us, if you would know—that."

She pointed to the envelope still resting upon the mantelpiece. He recognized the handwriting, and turned a shade paler. Her eyes noted it mercilessly.

"But your sister," he said. "What has she told you?"

"Everything."

He was a little bewildered.

"But," he said, "you do not blame me altogether?"

She rose to her feet.

"I am tired," she said, "and I want to rest. But if you do not leave this room I must."

He took up his hat.

"Very well," he said. "You are unjust and quixotic, Anna, you have no right to treat any one as you are treating me. And yet—I love you. When you send for me I shall come back. I do not believe that you will marry David Courtlaw. I do not think that you will dare to marry anybody else."

He left the room, and she stood motionless, with flaming cheeks, listening to his retreating footsteps. When she was quite sure that he was gone she took her sister's note from the mantelpiece and slowly broke the seal.

"DEAREST A——

"I lied to you. Nigel Ennison was my very good friend, but there is not the slightest reason for your not marrying him, if you wish to do so.

"My husband knows all. We leave England to-night.

"Ever yours, "ANNABEL.

Anna moved softly to the window, and threw up the sash. Ennison had disappeared.



Chapter XXIX

MONTAGUE HILL PLAYS THE GAME

The man opened his eyes and looked curiously about him.

"Where am I?" he muttered.

Courtlaw, who was sitting by the bedside, bent over him.

"You are in a private room of St. Felix Hospital," he said.

"Hospital? What for? What's the matter with me?"

Courtlaw's voice sank to a whisper. A nurse was at the other end of the room.

"There was an accident with a pistol in Miss Pellissier's room," he said.

The light of memory flashed in the man's face. His brows drew a little nearer together.

"Accident! She shot me," he muttered. "I had found her at last, and she shot me. Listen, you. Am I going to die?"

"I am afraid that you are in a dangerous state," Courtlaw answered gravely. "The nurse will fetch the doctor directly. I wanted to speak to you first."

"Who are you?"

"I am a friend of Miss Pellissier's," Courtlaw answered.

"Which one?"

"The Miss Pellissier in whose rooms you were, and who sings at the 'Unusual,'" Courtlaw answered. "The Miss Pellissier who was at White's with us."

The man nodded.

"I remember you now," he said. "So it seems that I was wrong. Annabel was in hiding all the time."

"Annabel Pellissier is married," Courtlaw said quietly.

"She's my wife," the man muttered.

"It is possible," Courtlaw said, "that you too were deceived. Where were you married?"

"At the English Embassy in Paris. You will find the certificate in my pocket."

"And who made the arrangements for you, and sent you there?" Courtlaw asked.

"Hainault, Celeste's friend. He did everything."

"I thought so," Courtlaw said. "You too were deceived. The place to which you went was not the English Embassy, and the whole performance was a fraud. I heard rumours of it in Paris, and the place since then has been closed."

"But Hainault—assured—me—that the marriage was binding."

"So it would have been at the English Embassy," Courtlaw answered, "but the place to which you went was not the English Embassy. It was rigged up for the occasion as it has been many a time before."

"But Hainault—was—a pal. I—I don't understand," the man faltered wearily.

"Hainault was Celeste's friend, and Celeste was Annabel's enemy," Courtlaw said. "It was a plot amongst them all to humiliate her."

"Then she has never been my wife."

"Never for a second. She is the wife now of another man."

Hill closed his eyes. For fully five minutes he lay quite motionless. Then he opened them again suddenly, to find Courtlaw still by his side.

"It was a bad day for me," he said, speaking slowly and painfully. "A bad thing for me when that legacy came. I thought I'd see Paris, do the thing—like a toff. And I heard 'Alcide' sing, and that little dance she did. I was in the front row, and I fancied she smiled at me. Lord, what a state I was in! Night after night I sat there, I watched her come in, I watched her go. She dropped a flower—it's in my pocket-book now. I couldn't rest or eat or sleep. I made Hainault's acquaintance, stood him drinks, lent him money. He shook his head all the time. Annabel Pellissier was not like the others, he said. She had a few acquaintances, English gentlemen, but she lived with her sister—was a lady. But one day he came to me. It was Celeste's idea. I could be presented as Meysey Hill. We were alike. He was—a millionaire. And I passed myself off as Meysey Hill, and since—then—I haven't had a minute's peace. God help me."

Courtlaw was alarmed at the man's pallor.

"You mustn't talk any more," he said, "but I want you to listen to me just for a moment. The doctor will be here to see you in five minutes. The nurse sent for him as soon as she saw that you were conscious. It is very possible that he will ask you to tell him before witnesses how you received your wound."

The man smiled at him.

"You are their friend, then?"

"I am," Courtlaw answered.

"Which one?"

"The one whose life you have been making a burden, who has been all the time shielding her sister. I would have married her long ago, but she will not have me."

"Bring her—here," Hill muttered. "I——"

The door opened, and the doctor entered softly. Hill closed his eyes. Courtlaw stood up.

"He has asked to see some one," he whispered to the doctor. "Is there any urgency?"

The doctor bent over his patient, who seemed to have fallen asleep. Presently he turned to Courtlaw.

"I think," he said, "that I would fetch any one whom he has asked to see. His condition is not unfavourable, but there may be a relapse at any moment."

So only a few minutes after Ennison's departure, while Anna stood indeed with her sister's open letter still in her hand, Courtlaw drove up in hot haste. She opened the door to him herself.

"Will you come round to the hospital?" he asked. "Hill has asked for you, and they will take his depositions to-night."

She slipped on her cloak and stepped into the hansom with him. They drove rapidly through the emptying streets.

"Will he die?" she asked.

"Impossible to say," he answered. "We have a private room at St. Felix. Everything is being done that can be."

"You are sure that he asked for me—not for Annabel?"

"Certain," Courtlaw answered.

"Has he accused any one yet?"

"Not yet," he answered. "I have scarcely left his side."

He was still conscious when they reached the hospital and his state was much more favourable. The doctor and another man were by his bedside when they entered the room, and there were writing materials which had evidently been used close at hand. He recognised Anna, and at once addressed her.

"Thank you—for coming," he said. "The doctor has asked me to give them my reasons—for shooting myself. I've told them all that was necessary, but I—wanted to ask your pardon—for having made myself a nuisance to you, and for breaking into your rooms—and to thank you—the doctor says you bound up my wound—or I should have bled to death."

"I forgive you willingly," Anna said, bending over him. "It has all been a mistake, hasn't it?"

"No more talking," the doctor interposed.

"I want two words—with Miss Pellissier alone," Hill pleaded.

The doctor frowned.

"Remember," he said, "you are not by any means a dying man now, but you'll never pull through if you don't husband your strength."

"Two words only," Hill repeated.

They all left the room. Anna leaned over so that he needed only to whisper.

"Tell your sister she was right to shoot, quite right. I meant mischief. But tell her this, too. I believed that our marriage was genuine. I believed that she was my wife, or she would have been safe from me."

"I will tell her," Anna promised.

"She has nothing to be afraid of," he continued. "I have signed a statement that I shot myself; bad trade and drink, both true—both true."

His eyes were closed. Anna left the room on tiptoe. She and Courtlaw drove homewards together.



Chapter XXX

SIR JOHN'S NECKTIE

Sir John, in a quiet dark travelling suit, was sitting in a pokey little room writing letters. The room was worse than pokey, it was shabby; and the view from the window, of chimney pots and slate roofs, wholly uninspiring. Nevertheless, Sir John had the look of a man who was enjoying himself. He seemed years younger, and the arrangement of his tie and hair were almost rakish. He stamped his last letter as Annabel entered.

She was dressed for the street very much as her own maid was accustomed to dress, and there was a thick veil attached to her hat.

"John," she declared, "I must eat or die. Do get your hat, and we will go to that corner cafe."

"Right," he answered. "I know the place you mean—very good cooking for such an out-of-the-way show. I'll be ready in a moment."

Sir John stamped his letters, brushed his hat, and carefully gave his moustache an upward curl before the looking-glass.

"I really do not believe," he announced with satisfaction, "that any one would recognize me. What do you think, Annabel?"

"I don't think they would," she admitted. "You seem to have cultivated quite a jaunty appearance, and you certainly look years younger. One would think that you enjoyed crawling away out of your world into hiding, with a very foolish wicked wife."

"Upon my word," he declared, "you are right. I really am enjoying it. It is like a second honeymoon. If it wasn't for the fear that after all—but we won't think of that. I don't believe any one could have traced us here. You see, we travelled second class, and we are in the least known quarter of Paris. To-night we leave for Marseilles. On Thursday we embark for South America."

"You are a marvellous courier," she declared, as they passed into the street. "You see, I will take your arm. It looks so French to be affectionate."

"There are some French customs," he declared, "which are admirable. I presume that I may not kiss you in the street?"

"Certainly not, sir," she replied, laughing. "If you attempted such a thing it would be in order that I should smack you hard with the palm of my hand upon the cheek."

"That is another French custom," he remarked, "which is not so agreeable. Here we are. Shall we sit outside and drink a petit verre of something to give us an appetite while dinner is being prepared?"

"Certainly not," she answered. "I am already so hungry that I shall begin on the petit pains. I have an appetite which I dare not increase."

They entered the place, a pleasant little cafe of the sort to be met with in the outlying parts of Paris. Most of the tables were for those who smoked only and drank wine, but there were a few spread with tablecloths and laid for dinner. Sir John and Annabel seated themselves at one of them, and the proprietor himself, a small dark-visaged man, radiant with smiles, came hurrying up, followed by a waiter.

"Monsieur would dine! It was very good! And Madame, of course?" with a low bow. The carte de jour was before Monsieur. He had but to give his orders. Monsieur could rely upon his special attention, and for the cooking—well, he had his customers, who came from their homes to him year after year. And always they were well satisfied. He waited the pleasure of Monsieur.

Sir John gave his order, deliberately stumbling now and then over a word, and anglicizing others. When he had finished he took up the wine list and ordered a bottle of dry champagne.

"I am afraid," he said to Anna afterwards, "that it was a mistake to order the champagne sec. They will guess that I am English."

Annabel leaned back in her chair and laughed till the tears stood in her eyes.

"Did you—did you really think that they would take you for a Frenchman?" she exclaimed.

"I don't see why not," he answered. "These clothes are French, and I'm sure this floppy bow would make a Frenchman of me anyhow. Perhaps I ought to have let you order the dinner, but I think I got through it pretty well."

"You did," Anna exclaimed. "Thank Heaven, they are bringing the hors d'oeuvres. John, I shall eat that whole tin of sardines. Do take them away from me after I have had four."

"After all," Sir John remarked complacently, "it is astonishing how easy it is for people with brains and a little knowledge of the world to completely hide themselves. I am absolutely certain that up to the present we have escaped all notice, and I do not believe that any casual observer would take us for English people."

A man who had been sitting with his hat tilted over his eyes at an adjacent table had risen to his feet and stood suddenly before them.

"Permit me to offer you the English paper which has just arrived, Sir John," he said, holding out a Daily Telegraph. "You may find in it a paragraph of some interest to you."

Sir John was speechless. It was Annabel who caught at the paper.

"You—appear to know my name, sir," Sir John said.

"Oh, yes," the stranger remarked good-humouredly. "I know you very well by sight, Sir John. It is my business to know most people. We were fellow passengers from Charing Cross, and we have been fellow lodgers in the Rue d'Entrepot. I trust you will not accuse me of discourtesy if I express my pleasure that henceforth our ways will lie apart."

A little sobbing cry from Annabel arrested Sir John's attention. The stranger with a bow returned to his table.

"Read this, John."

"THE BUCKNALL MANSIONS MYSTERY.

"Montague Hill, the man who was found lying wounded in Bucknall Mansions late on Wednesday night in the rooms of a well-known artiste, has recovered sufficiently to make a statement to the police. It appears that he was an unsuccessful admirer of the lady in question, and he admits that, under the influence of drink, he broke into her rooms, and there made a determined attempt at suicide. He further gave the name and address of the firm from whom he purchased the revolver and cartridges, a member of which firm has since corroborated his statement.

"Hill's confession will finally refute a number of absurd stories which have been in circulation during the last few days. We understand that, notwithstanding the serious nature of the man's injuries, there is every possibility of his recovery."

Annabel pulled down her veil to hide the tears. Sir John filled his glass with trembling hand.

"Thank God," he exclaimed. "The fellow is not such a blackguard, after all."

Annabel's hand stole into his.

"And I have dragged you all over here for nothing," she murmured.

"For nothing, do you call it?" he declared. "I wouldn't have been without this trip for worlds. It has been a real honeymoon trip, Annabel, for I feel that it has given me a wife."

Annabel pulled up her veil.

"You are a dear," she exclaimed affectionately. "I do hope that I shall be able to make it up to you."

Sir John's reply was incoherent. He called a waiter.

"Garcon," he said, "will you ask the gentleman at the next table if he will do me the honour of taking a glass of wine with me."

The stranger came over to them smiling. He had been on the point of leaving the restaurant. He accepted the glass of wine, and bowed.

"I drink your very good health, Sir John and Lady Ferringhall," he said, "and I wish you a pleasant journey back to England. If I might take the liberty, Sir John," he added, with a humorous gleam in his eyes, "I should like to congratulate you upon your tie."

"Oh, damn the thing!" Sir John exclaimed, tucking the loose ends inside his coat.

* * * * *

"I propose," Sir John said, "that we pay for our dinner—which we haven't had—tip the garcon a sovereign, and take a cab to the Ritz."

Annabel shook her head.

"Look at our clothes," she exclaimed, "and besides, the funny little proprietor has gone down himself to help it along. He would be so disappointed. I am sure it will be good, John, and I could eat anything. No, let us dine here, and then go and have our coffee on the boulevards. We can take our things up with us and stay at the Continental or the Ritz."

"Excellent," Sir John declared. "We will do Paris like the tourists, and thank God here comes dinner."

Everything was good. The garcon was tipped as he had never been tipped before in his life. They drove up into Paris in an open fiacre with a soft cool wind blowing in their faces, hand in hand beneath the rug. They went first to a hotel, and then out again on to the boulevards. The natural gaiety of the place seemed to have affected them both. They laughed and talked and stared about them. She took his hand in hers.

"Dear John," she whispered. "We are to begin our married life to-night—here where I first met you. I shall only pray that I may reward you for all your goodness to me."

Sir John, frankly oblivious of the possibility of passers-by, took her into his arms and kissed her. Then he stood up and hailed a fiacre.

"Hotel Ritz!"



Chapter XXXI

ANNA'S TEA PARTY

"I suppose you haven't the least idea who I am," Lady Lescelles said, as she settled herself in Anna's most comfortable chair.

"I have heard of you, of course," Anna answered hesitatingly, "but——"

"You cannot imagine what I have come to see you about. Well, I am Nigel Ennison's sister!"

"Oh!" Anna said.

"Nigel is like all men," Lady Lescelles continued. "He is a sad blunderer. He has helped me out of scrapes though, no end of times. He is an awfully good sort—and now he has come to me to help him if I can. Do you know that he is very much in love with you?"

Anna smiled.

"Well," she admitted. "He has said something of the sort."

"And you have sent him about his business. He tells me that you will not even see him. I don't want to bother you, of course. A woman has a perfect right to choose her own husband, but Nigel seemed to think that there was something a little mysterious about your treatment of him. You seemed, he thought, to have some grievance which you would not explain and which he thought must arise from a misunderstanding. There, that sounds frightfully involved, doesn't it, but perhaps you can make out what I mean. Don't you care for Nigel at all?"

Anna was silent for a moment or two.

Lady Lescelles, graceful, very fashionably but quietly dressed, leaned back and watched her with shrewd kindly eyes.

"I like your brother better than any other man I know," Anna said at last.

"Well, I don't think you told him as much as that, did you?" Lady Lescelles asked.

"I did not," Anna answered. "To be frank with you, Lady Lescelles, when your brother asked me the other day to be his wife I was under a false impression as regards his relations—with some other person. I know now that I was mistaken."

"That sounds more promising," Lady Lescelles declared. "May I tell Nigel to come and see you again? I am not here to do his love-making for him, you know. I came to see you on my own account."

"Thank you very much," Anna said. "It is very nice of you to come, but I do not think for the present, at any rate, I could give him any other answer. I do not intend to be married, or to become engaged just at present."

"Well, why not?" Lady Lescelles asked, smiling. "I can only be a few years older than you, and I have been married four years. I can assure you, I wouldn't be single again for worlds. One gets a lot more fun married."

"Our cases are scarcely similar," Anna remarked.

"Why not?" Lady Lescelles answered. "You are one of the Hampshire Pellissiers, I know, and your family are quite as good as ours. As for money, Nigel has tons of it."

"It isn't exactly that," Anna answered, "but to tell you the truth, I cannot bear to look upon myself as a rank failure. We girls, my sister and I, were left quite alone when our father died, and I made up my mind to make some little place in the world for myself. I tried painting and couldn't get on. Then I came to London and tried almost everything—all failures. I had two offers of marriage from men I liked very much indeed, but it never occurred to me to listen to either of them. You see I am rather obstinate. At last I tried a dramatic agent, and got on the music hall stage."

"Well, you can't say you're a failure there," Lady Lescelles remarked, smiling. "I've been to hear you lots of times."

"I have been more fortunate than I deserved," Anna answered, "but I only meant to stay upon the music hall stage until I could get something better. I am rehearsing now for a new play at the 'Garrick' and I have quite made up my mind to try and make some sort of position for myself as an actress."

"Do you think it is really worth while?" Lady Lescelles asked gently. "I am sure you will marry Nigel sooner or later, and then all your work will be thrown away."

Anna shook her head.

"If I were to marry now," she said, "it would be with a sense of humiliation. I should feel that I had been obliged to find some one else to fight my battles for me."

"What else," Lady Lescelles murmured, "are men for?"

Anna laughed.

"Afterwards," she said, "I should be perfectly content to have everything done for me. But I do think that if a girl is to feel comfortable about it they should start fairly equal. Take your case, for instance. You brought your husband a large fortune, your people were well known in society, your family interest I have heard was useful to him in his parliamentary career. So far as I am concerned, I am just now a hopeless nonentity. Your brother has everything—I have not shown myself capable even of earning my own living except in a way which could not possibly bring any credit upon anybody. And beyond this, Lady Lescelles, as you must know, recent events have set a good many people's tongues wagging, and I am quite determined to live down all this scandal before I think of marrying any one."

"I am sure," Lady Lescelles said, gently, "that the last consideration need not weigh with you in the least. No one in the world is beyond the shaft of scandal—we all catch it terribly sometimes. It simply doesn't count."

"You are very kind," Anna said. "I do hope I have been able to make you understand how I feel, that you don't consider me a hopeless prig. It does sound a little horrid to talk so much about oneself and to have views."

"I think," Lady Lescelles said, putting down her teacup, "that I must send Nigel to plead his own cause. I may tell him, at any rate, that you will see him?"

"I shall like to see him," Anna answered. "I really owe him something of an apology."

"I will tell him," Lady Lescelles said. "And now let us leave the men alone and talk about ourselves."

* * * * *

"I am delighted to see you all here," Anna said smiling upon them from behind the tea-tray, "but I shall have to ask you to excuse me for a few minutes. My agent is here, and he has brought his contract for me to sign. I will give you all some tea, and then I must leave you for a few minutes."

The three men, who had arrived within a minute or two of one another, received her little speech in dead silence. Ennison, who had been standing with his back to the window, came suddenly a little further into the room.

"Miss Pellissier," he said, "I came here this afternoon hoping particularly to see you for a few moments before you signed that contract."

She shook her head.

"We may just as well have our talk afterwards," she said, "and I need not keep poor Mr. Earles waiting."

Courtlaw suddenly interposed.

"May I be allowed to say," he declared, "that I came here with the same intention."

"And I also," Brendon echoed.

Anna was suddenly very quiet.

She was perhaps as near tears as ever before in her life.

"If I had three hands," she said, with a faint smile, "I would give one to each of you. I know that you are all my friends, and I know that you all have very good advice to give me. But I am afraid I am a shockingly obstinate and a very ungrateful person. No, don't let me call myself that. I am grateful, indeed I am. But on this matter my mind is quite made up."

Ennison hesitated for a moment.

"Miss Pellissier," he said, "these gentlemen are your friends, and therefore they are my friends. If I am to have no other opportunity I will speak before them. I came here to beg you not to sign that contract. I came to beg you instead to do me the honour of becoming my wife."

"And I," Courtlaw said, "although I have asked before in vain, have come to ask you once more the same thing."

"And I," Brendon said, humbly, "although I am afraid there is no chance for me, my errand was the same."

Anna looked at them for a moment with a pitiful attempt at a smile. Then her head disappeared suddenly in her hands, and her shoulders shook violently.

"Please forgive me—for one moment," she sobbed. "I—I shall be all right directly."

Brendon rushed to the piano and strummed out a tune.

The others hurried to the window. And Anna was conscious of a few moments of exquisite emotion. After all, life had still its pulsations. The joy of being loved thrilled her as nothing before had ever done, a curious abstract joy which had nothing in it at that moment of regret or even pity.

She called them back very soon.

The signs of tears had all gone, but some subtle change seemed to have stolen into her face. She spoke readily enough, but there was a new timidity in her manner.

"My friends," she said, "my dear friends, I am going to make the same answer to all of you—and that is perhaps you will say no answer at all. At present I cannot marry, I will not become bound even to any one. It would be very hard perhaps to make you understand just how I feel about it. I won't try. Only I feel that you all want to make life too easy for me, and I am determined to fight my own battles a little longer. If any of you—or all of you feel the same in six months' time from to-day, will you come, if you care to, and see me then?"

There was a brief silence. Ennison spoke at last.

"You will sign the contract?"

"I shall sign the contract. I think that I am very fortunate to have it to sign."

"Do you mean," Courtlaw asked, "that from now to the end of the six months you do not wish to see us—any of us?"

Her eyes were a little dim again.

"I do mean that," she declared. "I want to have no distractions. My work will be all sufficient. I have an aunt who is coming to live with me, and I do not intend to receive any visitors at all. It will be a little lonely sometimes," she said, looking around at them, "and I shall miss you all, but it is the fairest for myself—and I think for you. Do not avoid me if we meet by accident, but I trust to you all not to let the accident happen if you can help it."

Brendon rose and came towards her with outstretched hand.

"Good-bye, Miss Pellissier, and success to you," he said. "May you have as much good fortune as you deserve, but not enough to make you forget us."

Courtlaw rose too.

"You are of the genus obstinate," he said. "I do not know whether to wish you success or not. I will wish you success or failure, whichever is the better for you."

"And I," Ennison said, holding her fingers tightly, and forcing her to look into his eyes, "I will tell you what I have wished for you when we meet six months from to-day."



Chapter XXXII

SIX MONTHS AFTER

Up the moss-grown path, where the rose bushes run wild, almost met, came Anna in a spotless white gown, with the flush of her early morning walk in her cheeks, and something of the brightness of it in her eyes. In one hand she carried a long-stalked red rose, dripping with dew, in the other the post-bag.

She reached a tiny yellow-fronted cottage covered with flowering creepers, and entered the front room by the wide-open window. Breakfast was laid for one, a dish of fruit and a shining coffee equipage. By the side of her plate was a small key. With trembling fingers she opened the post-bag. There was one letter. One only.

She opened and read it at once. It was dated from the House of Commons on the previous day.

"MY DEAR MISS PELLISSIER,—

"To-morrow the six months will be up. For days I have been undecided as to whether I would come to you or no. I would like you to believe that the decision I have arrived at—to stay away—is wholly and entirely to save you pain. It should be the happiest day of your life, and I would not detract from its happiness by letting you remember for a moment that there are others to whom your inevitable decision must bring some pain.

"For I know that you love Ennison. You tried bravely enough to hide your preference, to look at us all with the same eyes, to speak to us in the same tone. It was not your fault you failed. If by any chance I have made a mistake a word will bring me to you. But I know very well that that word will never be spoken.

"Your great success has been my joy, our joy as well as yours. You have made for yourself a unique place upon the stage. We have so many actresses who aspire to great things in the drama, not one who can interpret as you have interpreted it, the delicate finesse, the finer lights and shades of true comedy. Ennison will make a thousand enemies if he takes you from the stage. Yet I think that he will do it.

"For my own part I have come fully now into my inheritance. I am bound to admit that I greatly enjoy my altered life. Every minute I spend here is an education to me. Before very long I hope to have definite work. Some of my schemes are already in hand. People shrug their shoulders and call me a crazy socialist. Yet I fancy that we who have been poor ourselves must be the best judges of the needs of the people.

"You will write to me, I am sure—and from the date of your letter I trust most earnestly that I may come back to my old place as

"Your devoted friend, "WALTER BRENDON."

She set the letter down, and drew from her pocket another with a foreign post mark which had come the day before. This one too she read.

"HASSELL'S CAMP, "NEAR COLORADO.

"On or about the day you receive this letter, Anna, the six months will be up. Do you expect me, I wonder. I think not. At any rate, here I am, and here I shall be, twenty thousand feet above all your poison-reeking cities, up where God's wind comes fresh from heaven, very near indeed to the untrodden snows. Sometimes I tremble, Anna, to think how near I came to passing through life without a single glimpse, a moment's revelation of this greatest and most awful of mysteries, the mystery of primaeval nature. It is a true saying that in the mountains there is peace. One's sense of proportion, battered out of all shape in the daily life of cities, reasserts itself. I love you still, Anna, but life holds other things than the love of man for woman. Some day I shall come back, and I will show you on canvas the things which have come to me up here amongst the eternal silence.

"Many nights I have thought of you, Anna. Your face has flitted out of my watch-fire, and then I have been a haunted man. But with the morning, the glorious unstained morning the passion of living would stir even the blood of a clod. It comes over the mountains, Anna, pink darkening into orange red, everywhere a wonderful cloud sea, scintillating with colour. It is enough to make a man throw away canvas and brushes into the bottomless precipices, enough to make one weep with despair at his utter and absolute impotence. Nature is God, Anna, and the greatest artist of us all a pigmy. When I think of those ateliers of ours, the art jargon, the decadents with their flamboyant talk I long for a two-edged sword and a minute of Divinity. To perdition with them all.

"I shall come back, if at all, a new man. I have a new cult to teach, a new enthusiasm. I feel years younger, a man again. My first visit will be to you. I must tell you all about God's land, this marvellous virgin country, with its silent forests and dazzling peaks. I make no apology for not being with you now. You love Ennison. Believe me, the bitterness of it has almost departed, crushed out of me together with much of the weariness and sorrow I brought with me here by the nameless glory of these lonely months. Yet I shall think of you to-day. I pray, Anna, that you may find your happiness.

"Your friend, "DAVID COURTLAW."

"P.S.—I do not congratulate you on your success. I was certain of it. I am glad or sorry according as it has brought you happiness."

Anna's eyes were a little dim as she poured out her coffee, and the laugh she attempted was not altogether a success.

"This is all very well," she said, "but two out of the three are rank deserters—and if the papers tell the truth the third is as bad. I believe I am doomed to be an old maid."

She finished her breakfast and strolled out across the garden with the letters still in her hand. Beyond was a field sloping steeply upwards, and at the top a small pine plantation. She climbed slowly towards it, keeping close to the hedge side, fragrant with wild roses, and holding her skirts high above the dew-laden grass. Arrived in the plantation she sat down with her back against a tree trunk.

Already the warm sun was drawing from the pines their delicious odour. Below her stretched a valley of rich meadowland, of yellow cornfields, and beyond moorland hillside glorious with purple heather and golden gorse. She tried to compose her thoughts, to think of the last six months, to steep herself in the calm beauty of the surroundings. And she found herself able to do nothing of the sort. A new restlessness seemed to have stolen in upon her. She started at the falling of a leaf, at the lumbering of a cow through the hedge. Her heart was beating with quite unaccustomed vigour, her hands were hot, she was conscious of a warmth in her blood which the summer sunshine was scarcely responsible for. She struggled against it quite uselessly. She knew very well that a new thing was stirring in her. The period of repression was over. It is foolish, she murmured to herself, foolish. He will not come. He cannot.

And then all her restlessness was turned to joy. She sprang to her feet and stood listening with parted lips and eager eyes. So he found her when he came round the corner of the spinney.

"Anna," he cried eagerly.

She held out her arms to him and smiled.

* * * * *

"And where," he asked, "are my rivals?"

"Deserters," she answered, laughing. "It is you alone, Nigel, who have saved me from being an old maid. Here are their letters."

He took them from her and read them. When he came to a certain sentence in Brendon's letter he stopped short and looked up at her.

"So Brendon and I," he said, "have been troubled with the same fears. I too, Anna, have watched and read of your success with—I must confess it—some misgiving."

"Please tell me why?" she asked.

"Do you need me to tell you? You have tasted the luxury of power. You have made your public, you are already a personage. And I want you for myself—for my wife."

She took his hand and smiled upon him.

"Don't you understand, Nigel," she said softly, "that it was precisely for this I have worked so hard. It is just the aim I have had in view all the time. I wanted to have something to give up. I did not care—no woman really cares—to play the beggar maid to your King Cophetua."

"Then you will really give it all up!" he exclaimed.

She laughed.

"When we go indoors I will show you the offers I have refused," she answered. "They have all been trying to turn my head. I think that nearly every manager in London has made me an offer. My reply to all of them has been the same. My engagement at the 'Garrick' terminates Saturday week, and then I am free."

"You will make me horribly conceited," he answered. "I think that I shall be the most unpopular man in London. You are not playing to-night, are you?"

"Not to-night," she answered. "I am giving my understudy a chance. I am going up to dine with my sister."

"Annabel is a prophetess," he declared. "I too am asked."

"It is a conspiracy," she exclaimed. "Come, we must go home and have some luncheon. My little maidservant will think that I am lost."

They clambered down the hill together. The air was sweet with the perfume of flowers, and the melody of murmuring insects, the blue sky was cloudless, the heat of the sun was tempered by the heather-scented west wind. Ennison paused by the little gate.

"I think," he said, "that you have found the real home of the lotus-eaters. Here one might live the life of golden days."

She shook her head gently.

"Neither you nor I, Nigel, are made of such stuff," she answered. "These are the playgrounds of life. The great heart of the world beats only where men and women are gathered together. You have your work before you, and I——"

He kissed her on the lips.

"I believe," he said, "that you mean me to be Prime Minister."



TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE:

Typesetting and editing of the original book from which this e-text has been transcribed was inconsistent. In addition to minor changes in punctuation, the theater in London in which the main character was a singer was referred to as the 'Unusual' and as the 'Universal'; this has been changed to refer to the theater consistently as the 'Unusual'. Additionally, Russell Square, the area in London where the main character resided was referred to twice as Russell Street; this has been changed to be consistent throughout this etext. Otherwise, every effort has been made to remain true to the author's words and intent.

THE END