"Supposing," he said, "you call the first person A, the second B, and the third one C. And let me know first exactly your position towards A."

"All right," agreed Trix cheerfully. "And even supposing you guess the tiniest bit what I am talking about, you won't let yourself guess, will you?"

Father Dormer assured her that he would not. He certainly felt she need have no smallest anxiety on that score, having in view her own method of explanation, but he tactfully refrained from saying so.

"Well," began Trix again, and rather slowly, "A has a secret. He doesn't know I know it, and I found it out quite by accident. He hasn't said it is a secret, but I know it is, because nobody else knows about it. Well, B knows A, but doesn't know A's secret, and because she doesn't know A's secret she is unhappy about A's conduct, whereas if she knew the secret I am pretty sure she wouldn't be so unhappy. And A need never know B does know, even if I tell her. And I feel sure from A's point of view it would not matter telling B, while it would be a good thing for B to know. But, in order to tell her, I may have to let her know how I learnt A's secret, and in doing that I should possibly have to tell lies, or let her know C's secret, which I promised not to tell. Because it was in meeting A that I found it out. Of course I may not have to do either, but there is the risk. Do you think I can take it? And is the matter quite clear now?"

Father Dormer smiled.

"I think I have grasped it," he said. "Well, in the first place, it isn't a matter of life and death, is it?"

"Oh no," said Trix.

"Then if I were you, I wouldn't take any risk about telling lies."

"No," said Trix relieved, "I thought I had better not. But then there is C's secret."

"Let us take A's secret first," suggested Father Dormer. "You feel quite sure it is important to let B know it, and that you are justified in disclosing it?"

Trix reflected.

"I feel quite sure it is important B should know," she said. "And I feel pretty sure I am justified in disclosing it. At first I thought perhaps I ought not to do so. But I know B won't tell any one else, so it can't matter her knowing as well as me. No; I am sure it can't," ended Trix decidedly.

"Then," said Father Dormer, "your best plan will be to ask C to release you from your promise."

Trix started.

"Oh, but—" she began. She shook her head. "I don't believe he would ever release me," she said.

"You could ask him, anyhow," said Father Dormer.

"Yes, I could," replied Trix doubtfully.

"Try that first," he suggested. "It is the simplest plan."

"Yes," said Trix still doubtfully.

Of course it sounded the simplest plan to Father Dormer, but then he had not the remotest idea of what the secret was, nor whom it concerned.

"You see," said Trix thoughtfully, "he knows A's secret too; at least, I feel sure he does."

"Perhaps," smiled Father Dormer, "it is not quite such a secret as you imagine."

"Oh, yes, it is," nodded Trix. "It is the most complicated affair that ever was, and the most extraordinary. Nobody would believe it if they didn't know." She sighed.

Father Dormer watched her. He saw that she evidently did consider it a complicated situation, though, in spite of her rather complicated explanation it had appeared quite simple to him. At all events, the solution had. It had not even—as soon as he had grasped the question she had come to ask—appeared to involve much difficulty of answering. It was quite obvious she ought not to run the risk of telling lies (he could guess that her honesty would make it exceedingly difficult for her to evade any awkward questions without telling them), mainly because it was never right to tell lies, but also because the smallest white one—so-called—would appear extremely black to Trix.

"Is that settled now?" he asked.

"Oh, yes," said Trix. She looked at her watch. "I've two hours; I had better do it at once." Then she stopped suddenly. "Oh, Father!" she exclaimed.

"Well?" he queried.

"You didn't guess, did you?"

"How could I?" he asked smiling.

"Oh, because saying that told you that C lived here."

He laughed. "My dear child, when you arrive at Woodleigh one day, and ask me a rather complicated question the next, it is perfectly obvious it is one which has to be settled in this neighbourhood, and at once. I could hardly imagine you have travelled down here on purpose to consult me; or that, if it were a question to be settled in town, you would not wait till your return to consult some other priest on the subject."

Trix smiled.

"I never thought of that," she owned. "But, of course, it is quite obvious. Only I am so afraid of breaking my promise."

She had risen to her feet by now. He held out his hand.

"I would not worry about that, if I were you. You have not broken it in the smallest degree. But now go and get leave to break it, if you can, and set your mind at rest."



CHAPTER XXXIV

AN AMAZING SUGGESTION

The avenue and garden were quite deserted as Trix approached Chorley Old Hall. The lawn was one great sheet of unbroken whiteness, flanked by frosted yew hedges, and very desolate.

She passed quickly along the terrace towards the front door, feeling almost as if spying eyes were watching her from behind the curtained windows. She took hold of the hanging iron bell-handle and pulled it, its coldness striking through her glove with an icy chill. She heard its clang in some far-off region, yet oddly loud in the dead silence. Involuntarily she shivered, partly with the cold, and partly with a sudden sense of nervousness.

A second or two passed. Trix stared hard at the brass knocker on the door, trying to still the nervousness which possessed her. There came a sound of steps in the hall, and the door was opened.

"Can I see Mr. Danver?" asked Trix.

Jessop stared, visibly startled.

"It is all right," said Trix quickly. "Don't you remember I had tea here last August?"

Jessop's face relaxed, but he looked a trifle dubious.

"I don't think—" he began.

Trix raised her chin.

"Go and ask him," she said with slight authority. "I will wait in the hall."

Jessop departed, to return after a minute.

"Will you come this way, please, Madam."

* * * * *

Nicholas Danver looked at her as she entered, an odd expression on his face.

He might never have moved from his chair since the day she had last seen him, thought Trix. The only difference in the surroundings was a crackling wood fire now burning on the big hearth.

"Well, Miss Devereux," he said, holding out his hand.

"You don't mind my having come?" queried Trix. "No one saw me."

A slight look of relief passed over Nicholas's face.

"I think I am glad you've come," he said. "Sit down, please."

Trix sat down. Her hands were tightly clasped within her muff. She was still beating back that quite unaccountable nervousness.

"You had a particular reason for coming to see me?" suggested Nicholas.

Trix nodded.

"Yes; I am in rather a difficulty. You are the only person who can help me."

Nicholas laughed shortly.

"It is an odd experience to be told that I can be of service to any one," he said. "What is it?"

Trix drew a long breath.

"Mr. Danver, I want you to release me from my promise."

Nicholas's eyes narrowed suddenly. A little gleam, like the spark from iron striking flint, flashed from them.

"What do you mean?" he asked coldly.

Trix's heart chilled at the tone.

"I must try and explain," she said. "In the first place, of course you know who your under-gardener really is?"

Nicholas stared at her.

"May I ask what that has got to do with you?"

"Well, I know too, you see," said Trix, feeling her heart beginning to beat still more quickly.

"How do you know? What questions have you been asking?"

Trix flushed.

"I haven't asked any questions," she said quickly. "I saw him the day I came here before. I knew his face then, but I couldn't remember who he was. Afterwards I remembered I used to play with him when I was a child."

"Well?" queried Nicholas briefly.

"Well," echoed Trix desperately, "I want to be able to tell someone he is Antony Gray, and not Michael Field. It is really very important that they should know, important for their happiness. But if I tell, they may want to know where I saw him, and ask questions which might lead to my either having to tell lies or betray your secret. If it becomes necessary, may I betray your secret? Will you release me from my promise?"

Nicholas's hand clenched tightly on the arm of his chair.

"Most certainly not," he replied shortly.

The tone was utterly final. Trix felt the old childish fear of him surging over her. It was quite different from the nervousness she had just been experiencing, and, oddly enough, it gave her a kind of desperate courage. She had no intention of accepting his refusal without a struggle.

"I wouldn't tell unless it became absolutely necessary," she urged.

"It never can be absolutely necessary," he retorted. "It would be no more dishonourable to tell a lie than break a promise."

Trix went scarlet.

"I never had the smallest intention of doing either," she replied. "If I had, I need not have troubled to come up here and ask you to release me from my promise."

Nicholas drummed his fingers on a small table near him.

"Well, you've had my answer," he said.

His voice was perfectly adamantine. Trix felt as if she were up against a piece of rock. She knew it was useless to pursue the subject further, yet for Pia's sake she tried again.

"Mr. Danver, why do you want everyone to think you're dead?" There was something almost childish in the way she put the question.

Nicholas laughed.

"Partly, my dear young lady, for my own amusement, but largely for a scheme I have on hand."

Trix leant forward.

"Is the scheme really important?" she queried, her eyes on his face.

"I don't know," he replied, watching her. "But my amusement is."

"Amusement," said Trix slowly.

"Yes, my amusement," he repeated mockingly. "I've had none for fifteen years. For fifteen years I have lived here like a log, alone, solitary. Now I've got a little amusement in pretending to be dead."

Trix shook her head. It sounded quite mad. Then she remembered Doctor Hilary's words to her when she had met him at the gates of Chorley Old Hall last August. He knew it was mad, but it was saving Nicholas from being atrophied, so he had said. To Trix's mind at least a dozen more satisfactory ways might have been found to accomplish that end. But every man to his own taste. Also it was quite possible that a brain which had been atrophied, or practically atrophied for fifteen years, was not particularly capable of conceiving anything more enlivening.

"But you needn't have been a log for fifteen years," she said suddenly.

"Needn't I?" he retorted. "Look at me." He made a gesture towards his helpless legs.

"I wasn't thinking of your body," said Trix calmly. "I was thinking of your mind."

Nicholas's face hardened.

"And so was I," he replied, "when I preferred to sit here like a log, rather than face the prying sympathy of my fellow-humans."

"Oh!" said Trix softly, a light of illumination breaking in upon her. "But, Mr. Danver, sympathy isn't always prying."

"Bah!" he retorted. "Prying or not, I didn't want it. Staring eyes, condoling words, and mockery in their hearts! 'He got what he deserved for his madness,' they'd have said."

Trix leant forward, putting her hands on the table.

"Mr. Danver," she said thoughtfully, "if you were a younger man, or I were an older woman, I'd say you were—well, quite remarkably foolish."

Nicholas chuckled. He liked this.

"You might forget our respective ages for a few moments," he suggested, "that is, if you have anything enlivening to say."

"I don't know about it being enlivening," remarked Trix calmly, "but I have got quite a good deal to say."

"Say it then," chuckled Nicholas.

Trix drew a deep breath.

"Mr. Danver, did you ever care for any one?"

Nicholas's eyes blazed suddenly.

"What the devil—" he began. "I beg your pardon. I gave you leave to speak."

Trix waved her hand.

"I was talking about men," she said, "men pals. Were there any you ever cared about?"

Nicholas laughed shortly.

"Your father, my dear young lady, and Richard Gray, father of the man who has led to this interesting discussion."

"They were really your friends?" queried Trix.

"The best fellows that ever stepped," said Nicholas with unwonted enthusiasm.

Trix nodded. Her eyes were shining. She was thinking of her aunt's disclosure regarding this Richard Gray.

"And I suppose," she said coolly, "you rejoiced when Richard Gray lost his money? You laughed at him for a fool?"

Nicholas stared at her.

"What on earth do you mean?" he asked. "I never knew he had lost money. I would have given my right hand to help him if I had known."

"He did lose money," said Trix. "But that's beside the point. You'd have helped him if you could? You wouldn't have jeered at him?"

"What do you take me for?" asked Nicholas half angrily.

Trix looked very straight at him.

"Only what you take others for, Mr. Danver."

There was a dead silence.

"Listen," said Trix suddenly. "You would have been generous to him, because you cared for him. Do you really think you are the only generous friend?"

Nicholas looked at her. There was a gleam of laughter in his eyes.

"It strikes me you are a very shrewd young woman," he said.

"It's only logical common sense," declared Trix stoutly.

Once more there fell a silence, a silence in which Nicholas was watching the girl opposite to him.

"Mr. Danver, will you tell me exactly what amusement you found in all this? What originated the idea in your mind?" Her voice was pleading.

For a moment Nicholas was silent.

"Yes," he said suddenly, "I will tell you."

It was not a long story, and to Trix it was oddly pathetic. It was the mixture partly of regret, partly the desire of justice to be administered to his property after his death, and partly the queer mad love of pranks which had been the keynote of his nature, and which had stirred again within the half-dead body. He told it all very simply, baldly almost, and yet he could not quite hide a certain queer wistfulness underlying it, the wistfulness of pride which has built barriers too strong for it, and yet from which it longs to escape.

"I thought Antony Gray could have a taste of living as one of the people," he ended. "Perhaps it would make him a better master than I had been. And then the scheme took shape."

"I see," said Trix slowly and thoughtfully.

"Well?" queried Nicholas.

Trix looked up at him. Her lips were smiling, but there were tears in her eyes.

"I understand," she said. "Perhaps I understand ever so much better than you think. But—but has it been worth it?"

Nicholas looked towards the fire.

"After the first planning, I don't honestly know that it has," he said. "A thing falls flat with no one to share it with you. And Hilary never really approved."

Again there was a silence, and again the odd pathos, the childishness of the whole thing stirred Trix's heart. She said she understood, and she did understand more profoundly than Nicholas could possibly have conceived. In the few seconds of silence which followed, she reviewed those solitary years in an amazingly quick mental process. She saw first the pride which had built the barrier, and then the slow stagnation behind it. She realized the two sentences which had penetrated the barrier (he had been perfectly candid in his story) without being able to destroy it, and then the faint stirrings of life within the almost stagnant mind. And the result had been this perfectly mad scheme,—the thought of a foolish boy conceived and carried out by the obstinate mind of a man; a scheme childish, foolish, mad, and of value only in so far as it had roused to faint life the mind of the lonely man who had conceived it.

And now he had tired of it. It had become to him as valueless as a flimsy toy; and yet he clung to it rather than leave himself with empty hands. Without it, he had absolutely nothing to interest him,—a past on which it hurt him to dwell by reason of its contrast with the present; a present as lonely almost as that of a prisoner in solitary confinement; and a future which to him was a mere blank, a grey nothingness.

Trix shivered involuntarily.

"And the fact remains, that I am dead," said Nicholas with a grim smile.

Trix turned suddenly towards him.

"Unless you have a sort of resurrection," she said.

Nicholas stared.

"Listen," said Trix.



CHAPTER XXXV

TRIX TRIUMPHANT

It was more than an hour before Trix departed, exultant, rejoicing.

Nicholas sat staring at the chair she had just vacated. He had been bewitched, utterly bewitched, and he knew it. Her vitality, her insistence had carried him with her despite himself,—that and an odd under-current of something he could not entirely explain. He might have called it faith, only it was not faith as he had been accustomed to think of it, when he thought at all. It was so infinitely more alive and personal. And yet she had only once touched on what he would have termed religion.

"You've wandered entirely from the object of your visit," he had remarked at one point in the conversation, "and I can't for the life of me see why you are taking this extraordinary interest in what you consider my welfare. What on earth can it matter to any one else, how I choose to live my life?"

"Ah, but it does matter," she had answered earnestly, "it matters quite supremely. I know we often pretend to ourselves that it doesn't in the least matter how we live our lives so long as we don't commit actual sin; but we can't isolate ourselves from others without loss to them and to ourselves."

"How about monks and nuns, who shut themselves up, and never see their fellow-creatures at all?" he had retorted, greatly pleased with himself for the retort.

Trix had opened eyes of wonder.

"The contemplative orders! Why, Mr. Danver, they're the cog-wheels of the whole machinery. They only keep their bodies apart that their minds may be more free. Nobody has the good of mankind so much at heart as a contemplative. They are keeping the machinery going by prayer the whole time."

The utter conviction in her words was unmistakable. For an odd flashing moment he had had something like a mental vision of an irresistible force pouring forth from those closed houses, a force like the force of a great river, carrying all things with it, and with healing virtue in its waters. The thought was utterly foreign to him. But it had been there.

"I am not much of a believer in prayer," he had said dryly. He had expected her to ask if he had ever tried it. She had not done so.

"Most of us do it so badly," she had said with a little sigh, "but they don't." And then she had flashed a glance of amusement at him. "Did you ever hear of the story of the old lady who said she was going to pray one night with entire faith that the hill beyond her garden might be removed? In the morning she found it still there. 'I knew it would be!' said the old lady triumphantly."

Nicholas joined in her laugh, but somewhat grimly.

"We're all like that," he said.

Trix shook her head.

"Not all, mercifully; but a good many." And then she had returned to her former charge.

Well, she had ended by bewitching him, and the queer thing was he was quite glad of the bewitchment. Now and again he pulled himself up with a jerk and a muttered word or two of irritation; but it was all a pretence, and he knew it. There was an odd excitement pulsing at his heart; despite his age and crippled state, he was feeling boyishly, absurdly young. For the first time for fifteen years he was looking forward to the morrow with pleasure.

He began to consider his programme. It was entirely simple. First there was Antony Gray to be interviewed. She had insisted on that. It was due to him to be given an entire, full, and detailed account of the whole business, so she had decreed. Nicholas shrugged his shoulders at the thought. There was just a question in his mind as to how the young man might regard the matter. Secondly, there was to be a tea-party in the library, at which Trix, the Duchessa, Miss Tibbutt, Antony, and Doctor Hilary were to be present. After that—well, events might take their own course. The villagers get to hear? Let them. Any amount of gossip? Of course, what did he expect? Anyhow he'd be a benefactor to mankind in giving poor, dull little Byestry something more interesting to talk about than the latest baby's first tooth, or the last injustice of Mr. Curtis. Yes; she meant it. Mr. Curtis was unjust, and the sooner Mr. Danver got rid of him and put Antony Gray in his place the better it would be for everyone concerned. And if he wanted a really dramatic moment he had better have Mr. Curtis up, and inform him that his services were no longer needed, and introduce him to the new agent at the same time. Trix only wished she could be present at the interview, but Mr. Danver would have to describe it to her in the minutest detail.

It is not at all certain that the thought of this interview, suggested before Trix had wrung the final promise from him, did not go a remarkably long way towards extracting that promise. The idea appealed to Nicholas. In the first place there would be the agent's profound amazement at the fact that Nicholas was not lying, as he had supposed, in the tomb of his ancestors; in the second place there would be his discomfiture in realizing that Nicholas had been entirely aware of his own movements, and the small act of petty spite towards Job Grantley and Antony; and in the third place there would be his amazement and discomfiture combined when he found that Nicholas was not the doddering old ass he had taken him for, but a man prepared to take matters into his own hands, and put a stop once and for all to a long system of tyranny.

"Yes sir, a man, and not the crippled fool you have taken me for," Nicholas heard himself saying. He chuckled at the thought.

And then he sat upright. What need to wait till the morrow for that interview? It was barely lunch time. A message to Antony requesting his presence at two o'clock, another to Mr. Curtis requesting his an hour later, and the game could be begun immediately.

Once more Nicholas chuckled. Then he pressed the electric button attached to the arm of his chair.

* * * * *

For once, and once only, in the long course of his butlership did the placid and unmoved calm of his manner entirely desert Jessop. The occasion was the present one.

He was in the pantry cleaning silver, when the whirr of the electric bell just above his head broke the silence. He put down the spoon he was polishing, discarded his green baize apron, donned his coat, and made his dignified way to the library.

Nicholas looked up at his entrance.

Accustomed to note every slightest variance in his master's moods, Jessop was at once aware of something unusual in his bearing. There was an odd, suppressed excitement; the nonchalance of his manner was unquestionably assumed.

"Ah, Jessop, I rang."

"Yessir," said Jessop, imperturbably, as who should say, "Naturally, since I have answered the summons."

Nicholas cleared his throat.

"Er—Jessop, you can bring Michael Field here at two o'clock this afternoon, when he returns from his dinner. You can also let Mr. Curtis know that he is to be here at three o'clock. You had better go to Byestry and give the message yourself. If he wishes to know by whose orders, you need mention no names, but merely say that orders have been given you to that effect. I fancy curiosity will bring him, even if he resents the non-mention of actual authority."

Jessop stared, actually stared, a prolonged, amazed survey of his master's face.

"You are seeing them, sir!" he gasped.

For a moment testiness swung to the fore at the question. Then the amazement on Jessop's face unloosed his sense of humour.

"Yes," said Nicholas quietly.

"But—" began Jessop. His mind was in a chaos. The order was so utterly unexpected. There were at least a million things he wished to point out, but the only one on which his brain would focus was the fact that if these men saw Nicholas, they would no longer imagine him to be dead. And yet that fact was so obvious, it was evident it must have occurred to Nicholas's own mind.

"Don't try to think," remarked Nicholas grimly, "merely obey orders."

The words pricked, restoring Jessop's balance. He drew himself to rigid attention, the mask suddenly resumed.

"Very good, sir," and Jessop left the room.

"What the blue blazes!" he muttered, as he returned, almost stumbling, towards the pantry.

The expression had belonged to the youthful Nicholas. Jessop borrowed it only at moments of the severest stress. It was borrowed now.



CHAPTER XXXVI

AN OLD MAN TELLS HIS STORY

Antony did not in the least understand Jessop's request to follow him to the library, when he returned from his midday meal. He imagined that there was some job which required doing, and that Jessop was regarding him in the light of a handy man. Anyhow Antony followed him good-humouredly enough, and not without a certain degree of curiosity. The big, silent house had always exercised an odd fascination over him, and he had more than once had a strong desire to set foot within its walls. He experienced an almost unconscious excitement in complying with the order.

He followed Jessop up the steps, and through the big door. Facing him were wide shallow oak stairs, uncovered and polished. Great Turkish rugs lay on the hall floor; two huge palms in big Oriental pots stood at either side of the stairs; hunting crops and antlers adorned the walls. Jessop opened a door on the right. Almost before Antony had realized what was happening, the butler had withdrawn and closed the door behind him.

Antony half turned in amazement towards the door.

"Ahem!"

With a start Antony turned back into the room. It was not empty, as he had imagined it to be. A white-haired, black-eyed man was sitting in a big oak chair, his colourless hands resting on the arms.

"Well?" said the man.

Memory surged over Antony in a flood. Alteration there unquestionably was in the crippled form before him, but the black piercing eyes were unchanged. The suddenness of his surprise made his brain reel. He put out his hand towards the back of a chair to steady himself.

"So you know me, Antony Gray," came the mocking old voice.

"Nicholas Danver," Antony heard himself saying, though he hardly realized he was speaking the words.

"Exactly," smiled Nicholas, "not dead, but very much alive, though not—" he glanced down at his helpless legs,—"precisely what you might term kicking."

Antony drew a deep breath. What in the name of wonder did this astounding drama portend?

"Sit down," said Nicholas shortly, pointing to a chair. "I have a good deal to say to you. You would be tired of standing before I have done."

Antony sat down. The Arabian Nights entertainment sensation he had formerly experienced in the offices of Messrs. Parsons and Glieve, rushed upon him with an even fuller force; yet here the lighter and almost humorous note was lacking. Something tinged with resentment had taken its place. He felt himself to have been trapped, befooled, though he had not yet fully grasped the manner of the befooling.

"I was a friend of your father," said Nicholas abruptly.

The story would not be told exactly as he had told it to Trix, though the difference in the telling would be largely unconscious. It would deal more with the surface of things, and less with the inner trend of thought, the telling of which had been drawn from him by her unspoken sympathy.

"I know," said Antony quietly, in answer to the remark.

"Also I met you once," said Nicholas, a little reminiscent smile dawning in his eyes. It had an oddly softening effect upon his rather carven face. For the moment he looked almost youthful.

"I remember," replied Antony gravely.

"Do you?" said Nicholas, the smile finding its way to his lips. "What a determined youngster you were! 'I've got to. I've begun!'" Nicholas threw back his head with a laugh. "It appealed to me, did that sentiment. I saw the bulldog grip in it. But there was no viciousness in the statement. Jove! you weren't even angry. You were as cool as a cucumber in your mind, though your cheeks were crimson with the effort. You succeeded, too. I had forgotten the whole business till last March. Then it came back to me. I've got to tell you the story to explain matters. It is only fair that you should know the ins and outs of this business. I have no doubt it seems pretty queer to you?" Nicholas paused.

"I confess I am somewhat at a loss regarding it," returned Antony dryly.

"Not over-pleased," muttered Nicholas inwardly. Aloud he said, "I've no doubt you will think it all a sort of fool show, and I am by no means sure that I don't regard it in something that fashion myself now. However—" Nicholas cleared his throat. "Since my accident on the hunting field I have seen no one. I had no desire to have a lot of gossipping women and old fool men around. I hate their cackle. I left the management of the estate to Standing, my agent. When he left—he got the offer of a post on Lord Sinclair's estate—Spencer Curtis took his place. He had to report to me, and I saw that he kept things going all right. He was not an easy man to the tenants, but I did not particularly want a softling, you understand. Last March one of the tenants—Job Grantley, you know him—sneaked up here. It had been a vile day. He was in difficulties as to his rent, and Curtis was putting the pressure on. He had a fancy for squeezing those who couldn't retaliate, I suppose. Dirty hound!"

Antony made a little sound indicative of entire assent. He was becoming interested in the recital.

"I learnt a little more about him," went on Nicholas smiling thoughtfully, "though he never guessed I made any enquiries. That was later. At the moment Job Grantley's tale was enough for me,—that, and something else he chanced to say. After he had gone I sat thinking, first of past days, then of the future. A distant cousin was heir to the property, a fellow to whom Curtis would have been a man after his own heart. I'd never had what you might precisely term a feeling of bosom friendship towards William Gateley. Oddly enough, you came into my mind at the moment. I remembered the whole scene on the moorland. I could not get away from the memory. Then the thought flashed into my mind to make you my heir. It seemed absurd, but it remained a fixture, nevertheless. The main thoroughly reasonable objection was that I knew exceedingly little about you. The child is not always father to the man. Fate takes a hand in the after moulding at times. Yet if it were not you it would be Gateley. That, at all events, was my decision. Then I conceived the notion of making you live as one of the labourers on the estate, in short of giving you some first-hand knowledge of a labourer's method of living, and incidentally of the tenderness of Curtis. Do you follow me?"

Antony nodded, an odd smile on his lips. He remembered his own conjecture, suggested by Mr. Albert George's discourse. The education was absolutely unnecessary.

"I fancied," went on Nicholas, "that it might teach you to be more considerate if you had any tendencies in an opposite direction. But—" he paused a moment, then smiled grimly,—"well, you may as well have the truth even if it is slightly unpalatable, and you can remember that I did not know you as a man. I was not sure of you. If you had known I was up here, and you had got an inkling of the game I was playing, what was to prevent you from playing your own game for the year, I argued, in fact pretending to a sympathy with the tenants which you did not feel. I have never had the highest opinion of human nature. On that account I conceived the idea of dying. It was easily carried out. The folk around were amazingly gullible; the report spread like wild-fire,—through the village, that is to say. I don't for a moment suppose it went much beyond it. The solicitors were in our confidence, and no obituary notice appeared in the papers. The villagers were not likely to notice the omission. Gateley is in Australia. Yes; it was easy enough to manage. But I see the weakness in the business now. You might quite well have imagined Hilary to be the watch-dog, and have played your game to him, and if I'd died suddenly before the year was up, and you had disclosed your true hand, matters would not have been as I had intended them to be. It was a mad idea, I have no doubt, though on the whole I am not sure that it wasn't its very madness that most appealed to me." He stopped.

"And what," said Antony, "is to be the outcome of this confidence now?" There was a certain stiffness in the question. The odd feeling of resentment was returning. He suddenly saw the whole business as a stupid child's game, a game in which he had given his word of honour with no smallest advantage to any single human being, and with quite enormous disadvantages to himself.

"The main outcome," said Nicholas, "is that I wish to offer you—Antony Gray—the post of agent on my estate for the remainder of my lifetime. At my death the will I have already drawn up holds good. The year's probation for you therein mentioned is not likely to be long exceeded, even if it is exceeded at all. At least such is Doctor Hilary's opinion."

There was a silence. Nicholas was watching Antony from under his shaggy eyebrows. The man was actually hesitating, debating! What in the name of wonder did the hesitation mean? Surely the offer of the post of agent was infinitely preferable to that of under-gardener? If the latter had been accepted, why on earth should there be hesitation regarding the former? So marvelled Nicholas, having, of course, no clue to the inner workings of Antony's mind. And even if he had had, the workings would have appeared to him illogical and unreasonable. It is truly not fully certain whether Antony understood them himself. He only knew that whereas it would be possible, though difficult, for him to remain in the neighbourhood of the Duchessa as Michael Field, gardener, to remain as Antony Gray, gentleman, appeared to him to be impossible; though precisely why it should be, he could not well have explained to himself.

"I should prefer to decline the offer," replied Antony quietly.

Nicholas's face fell. He was blankly disappointed, as blankly disappointed as a child at the sudden frustration of some cherished scheme. In twenty minutes Spencer Curtis, agent, would be blandly entering the library, and there would be no coup de theatre, such as Nicholas had pictured, to confront him.

"May I ask the reason for your refusal?" questioned Nicholas, his utter disappointment lending a flat hardness to his voice.

Antony shrugged his shoulders.

"Merely that I prefer to refuse," he answered.

Nicholas's mouth set in grim lines. His temper, never a very equable commodity, got the better of his diplomacy.

"It is always possible for me to alter my will," he remarked suavely.

Antony flashed round on him.

"For God's sake alter it, then," he cried. "The most fool thing I ever did in my life was to fall in with your mad scheme. Write to your solicitors at once." He made for the door.

"Stop," said Nicholas.

Antony halted on the threshold. He was furious at the situation.

"I have no intention of altering my will," said Nicholas, "I should like you clearly to understand that. I intend to abide by my part of the contract whether you do or do not now see fit to abide by your own."

Antony hesitated. The statement had taken him somewhat by surprise.

"What do you mean?" he demanded.

"Precisely what I say," retorted Nicholas. "I have made you my heir, and I have no intention of revoking that decision. You agreed to work for me for a year. You can break your contract if you choose. I shall not break mine."

"I can refuse the inheritance," said Antony.

Nicholas laughed. "If you choose to shirk responsibility and see the tenants remain the victims of Curtis's tenderness, you can do so. You have had experience of his ideas of fair play, and let me tell you that your experience has been of a remarkably mild order."

"You can choose another agent," said Antony shortly.

"I can," said Nicholas, with emphasis on the first word. "But I fancy William Gateley will find a twin to Curtis on my demise if you refuse the inheritance."

Once more Antony hesitated.

"Find another heir, then," he announced after a moment.

Nicholas shook his head. "You hardly encourage me to do so. My present failure appears so palpable, I am not very likely to make a second attempt in that direction."

Again there was a silence. Antony moved further back into the room.

"You rather force my hand," he said coldly.

"You mean you accept the inheritance?" asked Nicholas eagerly. His eagerness was almost too blatant.

"I will accept it," replied Antony dispassionately, "and will see justice done to your tenants. It will not be incumbent on me to make personal use of your money."

Nicholas let that pass.

"And for the present?" he asked.

"Concerning the matter of the contract," said Antony stiffly, "I would point out to you that I undertook to work for you for a year as Michael Field, gardener. Well, I will abide by that contract, and prolong it if necessary." He did not say till the day of Nicholas's death. But Nicholas understood his meaning.

"I trust you consider that I am now treating you fairly," said Antony still stiffly, and after a slight pause.

Nicholas bowed his head.

"Fairly, yes," he said in an odd, almost pathetic voice, "but hardly—shall we call it—as a friend."

Antony looked suddenly amazed.

"What do you mean?" he demanded.

"I wanted you to help me to get even with Curtis," he replied regretfully. His tone was somewhat reminiscent of a rueful schoolboy.

Despite himself Antony smiled.

"I ordered him to come here at three o'clock," went on Nicholas, glancing at the clock which wanted only five minutes of the hour. "I wanted to give him his conge, and introduce him to the new agent at the same moment. He believes firmly in my demise, by the way, which would certainly have added zest to the business. And now—well, it will be a pretty flat sort of compromise, that's all."

Antony laughed aloud. For the life of him he could not help it. And then, as he laughed, he realized in a sudden flash, almost as Trix had realized, the odd pathos, the utter loneliness which could find interest in the mad business he—Nicholas—had invented.

Suddenly Antony spoke.

"You may as well carry out your original programme," he said, and almost good-humouredly annoyed at his own swift change of mood.

The library door opened.

"Mr. Spencer Curtis," announced Jessop on a note of solemn gloom.



CHAPTER XXXVII

THE IMPORTANCE OF TRIFLES

It was not till a good many hours later that the anticlimax of the recent situation struck Trix. Excitement had prevented her from realizing it at first. In the excitement of what the thing stood for, she had overlooked the utter triviality of the thing itself. When, later, the two separated themselves in a measure, and she looked at the thing as apart from what it indicated, the ludicrousness of it struck her with astounding force.

Nicholas Danver would give a tea-party.

And it was this, this small commonplace statement, which had kept the Duchessa, Miss Tibbutt, Doctor Hilary, and herself in solemn and amazed confabulation for at least two hours. It was infinitely more amazing even than the whole story of the past months, and Trix had given that in fairly detailed fashion, avoiding the Duchessa's eyes, however, whenever she mentioned Antony's name. Yes; it was what the tiny fact stood for that had astounded them; though now, with the fact in a measure separated from its meaning, Trix saw the almost absurdity of it.

Fifteen years of a living death to terminate in a tea-party!

It was an anticlimax which made her almost hysterical to contemplate. She felt that the affair ought to have wound up in some great movement, in some dignified action or fine speech, and it had descended to the merely ludicrous, or what, in view of those fifteen years, appeared the merely ludicrous. And she had been the instigator of it, and Doctor Hilary had called it a miracle. Which it truly was.

And yet, banishing the ludicrous from her mind, it was so entirely simple. There was not the faintest blare of trumpets, not a whisper even of an announcing voice, merely the fact that a solitary man would once more welcome friends beneath his roof.

The only real touch of excitement about the business would be when Antony Gray learnt the news, and he and the Duchessa met. And yet even that somehow lost its significance before the absorbing yet quiet fact of Nicholas's own resurrection.

"He is looking forward to it like a child," Trix had said.

And Miss Tibbutt had suddenly taken off her spectacles and wiped them.

"It's an odd little thing to feel choky about," she had said with a shaky laugh.

Presently she had left the room. A few moments later Doctor Hilary had also taken his leave. Trix and the Duchessa had been left alone. Suddenly the Duchessa had looked across at Trix.

"What made you do it?" she had asked.

Trix understood the question, and the colour had rushed to her face.

"What made you do it?" the Duchessa had repeated.

"For you," Trix had replied in a very small voice.

"You guessed?" the Duchessa had asked quietly.

Trix nodded. It had been largely guesswork. There was no need, at the moment at all events, to speak of Miss Tibbutt's share in the matter. That was for Tibby herself to do if she wished.

The Duchessa had got up from her chair. She had gone quietly over to Trix and kissed her. Then she, too, had left the room.

Trix stared thoughtfully into the fire. Its light was playing on the silver-backed brushes on her dressing-table, gleaming on the edges of gilt frames, and throwing her shadow big and dancing on the wall behind her. The curtains were undrawn, and without the trees stood ghostly and bare against the pale grey sky. There was the dead silence in the atmosphere which tells of frost.

It was just that,—the oddness of little things, and their immense importance in life, and simply because of the influence they have on the human soul. It was this that made the fact of Nicholas Danver giving a tea-party of such extraordinary importance, though, viewed apart from its meaning, it was the most trivial and commonplace thing in the world.

Trix got up from her chair, and went over to the window.

Not a twig of the bare trees was stirring. The earth lay quiet in the grip of the frost king; a faint pink light still lingered in the western sky. She looked at the rustic seat and the table beneath the lime trees. How amazingly long ago the day seemed when she had sat there with Pia, and heard the little tale of wounded pride. How amazingly long ago that very morning seemed, when she had seen the sunlight flood her window-pane with ruby jewels. Even her interview with Father Dormer seemed to belong to another life. It had been another Trix, and not she herself who had propounded her difficulty to him, a difficulty so astoundingly simple of solution.

She heaved a little sigh of intense satisfaction, and then she caught sight of a figure crossing the grass.

The Duchessa had come out of the house and was going towards the garden gate.



CHAPTER XXXVIII

A FOOTSTEP ON THE PATH

Antony was sitting in his cottage. It was quite dusk in the little room, but he had not troubled to light the lamp. A mood of utter depression was upon him, though for the life of him he could not tell fully what was causing it. That very fact increased the depression. There was nothing definite he could get a grip on, and combat. He was in no worse situation than he had been in three hours previously, in fact it might be considered that he was in an infinitely better one, and yet this mood was less than three hours old.

Of course the thought of the Duchessa was at the root of the depression. But why? If he met her again—and all things now considered, the meeting was even more than probable—what earthly difference would it make whether he met her in his role of Michael Field, gardener, or as Antony Gray, agent? And yet he knew that it would make a difference. Between the Duchessa di Donatello and Michael Field there was fixed a great social gulf. He himself had assured her of that fact. Keeping that fact in view, he could deceive himself into the belief that it alone would be accountable for the aloofness of her bearing, for the frigidity of her manner should they again meet. Oh, he'd pictured the meetings often enough; pictured, too, and schooled himself to endure, the aloofness, the frigidity.

"I rubbed it well in that I am only a gardener, a mere labourer," he would assure his soul, with these imaginary meetings in mind. Of course he had known perfectly well that he was deceiving himself, yet even that knowledge had been better than facing the pain of truth.

But now the truth had got to be faced.

There would be the aloofness, sure enough, but there would no longer be that great social gulf to account for it. The true cause would have to be acknowledged. She scorned him, firstly on account of his fraud, and secondly because he had wounded her pride by his quiet deliberate snubbing of her friendship. Whatever justification she might presently see for the first offence, it never for an instant occurred to his mind that she might overlook the second. He had deliberately put a barrier between them, and it appeared to him now, as it had appeared at the moment of its placing, utterly and entirely unsurmountable. She would be civil, of course; there would not be the slightest chances of her forgetting her manners, but—his mind swung to the little hotel courtyard, to the orange trees in green tubs, to the golden sunshine and the sparkle of the blue water, to the woman then sitting by his side.

Memory can become a sheer physical pain at times.

Antony got up from the settle, and moved to the window. Despite the dusk within the room, there was still a faint reflection of the sunset in the sky, a soft pink glow.

One thing was certain—nothing, no power on earth, should ever drag him back to Teneriffe again. If only he could control the action of his memory as easily as he could control the actions of his body. At all events he'd make a fight for it. And yet, if only—The phrase summed up every atom of regret for his mad decision, his falling in with that idiotic plan of Nicholas's. And, after all, had it been so idiotic? Mad, certainly; but wasn't there a certain justification in the madness? It was a madness the villagers would unquestionably bless.

His thoughts turned to the recent interview. It had fully borne out all Nicholas's expectations. Bland, self-confident, Curtis had entered the library. Antony had had no faintest notion whom he had expected to see therein, but most assuredly it was not the two figures who had confronted him. Bewilderment had passed over his face, and an odd undernote of fear. It was just possible he had taken Nicholas for a ghost. The reassurance on that point had set him fairly at his ease. He had been subservient to Nicholas, extravagantly amused to learn of the trick that had been played. He had been insolently oblivious of Antony's presence. Antony had enjoyed the insolence. When he learnt that his services were no longer required, he had first appeared slightly discomfited. Then he had plucked up heart of grace.

"Going to take matters into your own hands?" he had said to Nicholas. "Excellent, my dear sir, excellent."

Nicholas had glanced down at the said hands.

"I think," he had said slowly, "that they are rather old. No; I have other plans in view."

"Yes?" Curtis had queried.

"I wish to try a new regime," Nicholas had said calmly. "I should like to introduce you to my new agent." He had waved his hand towards Antony.

Black as murder is a well-worn and somewhat trite expression, nevertheless it alone adequately described the old agent's expression. And then, with a palpable effort, he had recovered himself.

"A really excellent plan," he had said, with scarcely veiled insolence. "I congratulate you on your new regime. They say 'Set a thief to catch a thief'; no doubt 'Set a hind to rule a hind' will prove equally efficacious." He had laughed.

"On the contrary," Nicholas's voice, suave and calm, had broken in upon the laugh, "that is the very regime I am now abolishing. 'Set a gentleman to rule a hind' is the one I am about to establish, that is why I have offered the post of agent to Mr. Antony Gray, son of a very old friend of mine."

For one brief instant Curtis had been entirely non-plussed, the cut in the speech was lost in amazement; then bluster had come to his rescue.

"So you have had recourse to a system of spying," he had said with a sneer that certainly did not in the least disguise his fury. "Personally I have never looked upon it as a gentleman's profession."

"The question of a gentleman's profession is not one in which I should readily take your advice, Mr. Curtis," Nicholas had replied, smiling gently.

Curtis had turned to the door.

"I did not come here to be insulted," he had said.

"Neither," Nicholas had retorted sternly, "have I paid you to insult my tenants. You have accused me of a system of spying. You yourself best know whether such a system was justified by the need. Though I can assure you that Mr. Gray was no spy. He believed in my death as fully as you did."

There had been some further conversation,—remarks it might better be termed. The upshot had been that Curtis was leaving Byestry of his own accord on the morrow; Antony took over his new post immediately.

It had not been till Curtis had left that Nicholas had broached the subject of the tea-party the following day, and had requested Antony's presence. The request had been firmly declined, nor could all Nicholas's persuasions move Antony from his resolution.

"I am utterly unsociable," Antony had declared.

Nicholas smiled grimly.

"So am I, or, at any rate, so I was till Miss Devereux took me in hand."

"Miss Devereux!" Antony had echoed.

"Yes, she's at the bottom of this business," Nicholas had assured him, "though what further plot she has up her sleeve I don't know. Why, if it hadn't been—" And then, on the very verge of declaring that Antony himself had been the real foundation of the whole business, he had stopped short. Never in his life had Nicholas betrayed a lady's secret or what might have been a lady's secret. They were pretty much one and the same thing as far as his silence on the matter was concerned.

Well, the long and the short of the whole business was that the tenants of the Chorley Estate were about to receive fair play, and Nicholas was about to emerge from the chrysalis-like existence in which he had shrouded himself for fifteen years,—an advantage, certainly, in both instances. Only so far as Antony's own self was concerned there didn't seem the least atom of an advantage anywhere. Of course he was fully aware that he ought to see immense advantages. But he didn't.

"It's better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all," says one of the poets. Was it Tennyson? But then that depends very largely on the manner of the losing. And in this case!

Antony crossed to the dresser and lighted the small lamp. He had just set it in the middle of the table when he heard the click of his garden gate, and a footstep on his little flagged path.



CHAPTER XXXIX

ON THE OLD FOUNDATION

Antony stood very still by the table. Once before he had heard that same footfall on his path,—a light resolute step. His face had gone quite white beneath its tan. There was a knock on the door. For one brief second he paused. Then he crossed the room, and opened the door wide.

"May I come in?" asked the Duchessa.

He moved aside, and she came into the room, standing in the lamplight. He stood near her, words, conventional words, driven from his lips by the mad pounding and beating of his heart.

"Might I sit down?" asked the Duchessa a little breathlessly. And she crossed to the settle. Her face was in shadow here, but Antony had seen that it was strangely white.

Still Antony had not spoken.

The Duchessa looked up at him.

"I am nervous," said she, an odd little tremor in her voice.

"Nervous!" echoed Antony, surprise lending speech to his tongue.

"Nervous," she replied, the odd little tremor still in her voice. "I owe you an apology, oh, the very deepest apology, and I don't know how to begin."

"Don't begin at all," said Antony hoarsely, sternly almost.

"Ah, but I must. Think how I spoke to you. You—we had agreed that trust was the very foundation of friendship, and I destroyed the foundation at the outset."

"It was not likely you could understand," said Antony.

She caught her breath, a little quick intake.

"Would you say the same if it had been the other way about? Would you have destroyed the foundation?"

Antony was silent.

"Would you?" she insisted.

"I—I hope not," he stammered.

"And yet you appear to think it reasonable that I should have done so."

He could not quite understand the tone of her words.

"I think it reasonable you did not understand," he declared. "How could you? Nobody could have understood. It was the maddest, the most inconceivable situation."

"Possibly. Yet if the positions had been reversed, if it had been you who had failed to understand my actions, would you not still have trusted?"

"Yes," said Antony, conviction in the syllable. He did not think to ask her how it was that she understood now. The simple fact that she did understand swept aside, made trivial every other consideration.

"You mean that a man's trust holds good under any circumstances, whereas a woman's trust will obviously fail before the first difficulty?" she demanded.

"I did not mean that," cried Antony hotly.

"No?" she queried mockingly.

"It was not, on my part, a question of trust alone," said Antony deliberately. He looked straight at her as he spoke the words.

The Duchessa dropped her eyes. A crimson colour tinged her cheeks, crept upwards to her forehead.

There was a dead silence. Then——

"Will you help me to re-build the foundation?" asked the Duchessa.

"It was never destroyed," said Antony.

"Mine was," she replied steadily. "Will you forgive me?"

"There can be no question of forgiveness," he replied hoarsely.

Her face went to white.

"You refuse?"

"There is nothing to forgive," he said.

Again she drew a quick breath.

"There is," she said.

"I think not," he replied.

The Duchessa looked towards the fire.

"Why do you say that?"

"Because," he replied slowly, "between you and me there can be no question of forgiveness. To forgive, one must acknowledge a wrong done to one. I acknowledge none."

She turned towards him.

"You cared so little, you felt none?"

"No," responded Antony, the words leaping to his lips, "I cared so much I felt none."

"Ah," she breathed, and stopped. "Then you will go back to the old footing?" she asked.

Antony's heart beat furiously.

"I cannot," he replied.

"Why?" she demanded, speaking very low.

Antony drew a deep breath.

"Because I love you," he said quietly.

Again there was a dead silence. At last Antony spoke quietly.

"Of course I have no right to tell you that," he said. "But you may as well know the whole truth now. It was because of that love that I agreed to this business. I had nothing to offer you. Here was my chance to obtain something. I had no notion then that you lived in this neighbourhood. When I found out, I was tempted to let you infer that there was a mystery, some possible explanation of my conduct. It would have been breaking my contract in the spirit, though not actually in the letter. Well, I didn't break it at all, and of course you did not understand. In order to keep my contract I had to deceive you, or at all events to allow you to believe an untruth. Naturally you scorned my deceit, as it appeared to you. It was that that mattered of course, not the social position. I understood that completely. Later, you offered me your friendship. You were ready to trust without understanding. I could not accept your trust. A friendship between us must have led others to suspect that I was not what I appeared to be. That was to be avoided. It had to be avoided. I hurt you then, knowing what I did." He stopped.

"I think you hurt yourself too," she suggested quietly.

The muscles in Antony's throat contracted.

"Come here," said the Duchessa.

Antony crossed to the hearth. He stood looking down at her.

"Kneel down," said the Duchessa.

Obediently he knelt.

"You are so blind," said the Duchessa pathetically, "that you need to look very close to see things clearly. Look right into my eyes. Can't you see something there that will heal that hurt?"

A great sob broke from Antony's throat.

"Ah, don't, dear heart, don't," cried the Duchessa, drawing his head against her breast.

* * * * *

"Will the new agent agree to live at the Manor House?" asked the Duchessa, after a long, long interval composed of many silences though some few words. "Will his pride allow him to accept a small material benefit for a short time, seeing what a great amount of material benefit will be his to bestow in the future?"

Antony laughed.

"I told Mr. Danver I wouldn't use a penny of his money for myself," he said.

"Oh!" She raised her eyebrows in half comical dismay, which hid, however, a hint of real anxiety. Would his pride accept where it did not bestow in like kind? For other reason than this the bestowal would signify not at all.

"You mind?" he asked smiling.

She looked straight at him.

"Not the smallest atom," she declared, utterly relieved, since there was no shadow of false pride in the laughing eyes which met her own.

"Ah, but," said Antony slowly, and very, very deliberately, "I never said I would not use it for my wife."



EPILOGUE

An old man was sitting in the library of the big grey house. A shaded reading-lamp stood on a small table near his elbow. Its light was thrown on an open book lying near it, and on the carved arms of the oak chair in which the man was sitting. It shone clearly on his bloodless old hands, on his parchment-like face and white hair. A log fire was burning in a great open hearth on his right. For the rest, the room was a place of shadows, deepening to gloom in the distant corners, a gloom emphasized by the one small circle of brilliant light, and the red glow of the fire. Book-cases reached from floor to ceiling the whole length of two walls, and between the thickly curtained windows of the third. In the fourth wall was the fireplace and the door.

There was no sound to break the silence. The figure in the oak chair sat motionless. He might have been carved out of stone, for any sign of life he gave. He looked like stone,—white and black marble very finely sculptured,—white marble in head and hands, black marble in the piercing eyes, the long satin dressing-gown, the oak of the big chair. Even his eyes seemed stone-like, motionless, and fixed thoughtfully on space.

The big room was very still. An hour ago it had been full of voices and laughter, amazed questions, and half-mocking explanations.

Later the front door had banged. There had been the sound of steps on the frosty drive, receding in the distance. Then silence.

Nicholas's eyes turned towards the middle window of the three, surveying the heavy hanging curtain.

A whimsical smile lighted up his grim old mouth.

"After all, it wasn't a wasted year," he said aloud.

Then he turned and looked round the empty room. It seemed curiously deserted now.

"And the year is not yet ended," he added. He was amazed at the pleasure the thought gave him.

THE END.