During the first week of August the excitement in Paris reached its greatest height, and culminated on the Saturday after the battle of Weissenburg. Of this defeat John Turner had, as I believe, the news before any other in Paris. Indeed, the evil tidings came to the city from the English Times. The stout banker, whose astuteness I had never doubted, displayed at this time a number of those qualities—such as courage, cool-headedness and foresight—to which we undoubtedly owe our greatness in the world. We are, as our neighbours say, a nation of shopkeepers, but we keep a rifle under the counter. A man may prove his courage in the counting-house as effectually as on the field of battle.

"These," I said to Turner, "are stirring times. I suppose you are very anxious."

I had passed before the Bourse in coming to the Avenue d'Antan, and had, as I spoke, a lively recollection of the white-faced and panic-stricken financiers assembled there. For one franc that these men had at stake, it was probable that John Turner had a thousand.

"Yes—I am anxious," he said, quietly. "These are stirring times, as you say; they stimulate the appetite wonderfully, and, I think, help the digestion."

As he spoke a clerk came into the room without knocking—his eyes bright with excitement. He gave John Turner a note, which that stout gentleman read at a glance, and rose from the breakfast table.

"Come with me," he said, "and you will see some history."

We drove rapidly to the Bourse, through crowded streets, and there I witnessed a scene of the greatest excitement that it has been my lot to look upon; for it has pleased God to keep me from any battle-field.

Above a sea of hats a score of tricolour flags fluttered in the dusty air, and wild strains of the Marseillaise dominated the roar and babble of a thousand tongues wagging together. The steps of the great building were thronged with men, and on the bases of the statuary orators harangued high heaven, for no man had the patience to listen.

"What is it?" I asked my companion.

"News of a French victory; but it wants confirmation."



Some who could sing, and others who only thought they could, were shouting the Marseillaise from any elevation that presented itself—an omnibus or a street refuse-box served equally well for these musicians.

"How on earth these people have ever grown to a great nation!" muttered John Turner, who sat in his carriage. A man clambered on the box beside the coachman.

"I will sing you the Marseillaise!" he shouted.

"Thank you," replied John Turner.

But already the humour of the throng was changing, and some began to reflect. In a few minutes doubt swept over them like a shower of rain, and the expression of their faces altered. Almost immediately it was announced that the news of the victory had been a hoax.

"I am going to my office," said Turner, curtly. "Come and see me to-morrow morning. I may have some advice to give you."

In the evening I saw Madame, and told her that things were going badly on the frontier; but I did not know that the Germans were, at the time of speaking, actually on French territory, and that MacMahon had been beaten at Metz.

"Get the women out of the country," said John Turner to me the next morning, "and don't bother me."

I went back to the Hotel Clericy and there found Alphonse Giraud. He was in the morning-room with the two ladies.

"I have come," he said, "to bid you all good-by, as I was just telling these ladies.

"You remember," he went on, taking my hand and holding it in his effusive French way—"you remember that I said I would buy myself a commission? The good God has sent me one, but it is a rifle instead of a sword."

"Alphonse has volunteered to fight as a common soldier!" cried Lucille, her face glowing with excitement. "Is it not splendid? Ah, if I were only a man!"

Madame looked gravely and almost apprehensively at her daughter. She did not join in Giraud's proud laugh.

"There is bad news," she said, looking at my face. "What is it?"

"Yes, there is bad news, and it is said that Paris is to be placed under martial law. You and Mademoiselle must leave."

Alphonse protested that it was only a temporary reverse, and that General Frossard had but retreated in order to strike a harder blow. He nodded and winked at me, but I ignored his signals; for I have never held that women are dolls or children, that the truth must be withheld from them because it is unpleasant.

So Alphonse Giraud departed to fight for his country. He was drafted into a cavalry regiment, "together with some grooms and hostlers from the stables of the Paris Omnibus Company," as he wrote to me later in good spirits. He proved himself, moreover, a brave soldier as well as a true and honest French gentleman.

Madame de Clericy and Lucille made preparations for an early departure, but were averse to quitting Paris until such time as necessity should drive them into retreat. I saw nothing of John Turner at this time, but learnt from others that he was directing the course of his great banking house with a steady hand and a clear head. I wanted money, but did not go to him, knowing that he would require explanations which I was in no wise prepared to give him. Instead I telegraphed to my lawyer in London, who negotiated a loan for me, mortgaging, so far as I could gather from his technical communications, my reversion of Hopton in case Isabella Gayerson should marry another than myself. The money was an absolute necessity, for without it Madame and Lucille could not leave France, and I took but little heed of the manner in which it was procured.

It was in the evening of August 28th, a few hours after General Trochu's decree calling upon foreigners to quit Paris, that I sought a consultation with Madame. The Vicomtesse came to my study, divining perhaps that what I had to say to her were better spoken in the absence of Lucille.

"You wish to speak to me, mon ami," she said.

In reply I laid before her the proclamation issued by General Trochu. In it all foreigners were warned to leave, and persons who were not in a position to "faire face a l'ennemi" invited to quit Paris. She glanced through the paper hurriedly.

"Yes," she said; "I understand. You as a foreigner cannot stay."

"I can stay or go," I replied; "but I cannot leave you and Mademoiselle in Paris."

"Then what are we to do?"

I then laid before her my plan, which was simple enough in itself.

"To England?" said Madame de Clericy, when I had finished, and in her voice I detected that contempt for our grey country which is held by nearly all Frenchwomen. "Has it come to that? Is France then unsafe?"

"Not yet—but it may become so. The Germans are nearer than any one allows himself to suppose."

I saw that she did not believe me. Madame de Clericy was not very learned, and it is probable that her history was all forgotten. Paris had always seemed to her the centre of civilisation and safely withdrawn from the perils of war or internal disorder.

I begged her to leave the capital, and painted in lurid colours the possible effects of further defeat and the resulting fall of the French Empire.

"See," I said, opening the drawer of my writing table, "I have the money here. All is prepared, and in England I have arranged for your reception at a house which, if it is not palatial, will at all events be comfortable."

"Where is the house?"

"At a place called Hopton, on the border of Suffolk and Norfolk. It stands empty and quite ready for your reception. The servants are there."

"And the rent?" said she, without looking at me. "Is that within our means?"

"The rent will be almost nominal," I replied. "That can be arranged without difficulty. Many of our English country houses are now neglected. It is the fashion for our women, Madame, to despise a country life. They prefer to wear out themselves and their best attributes on the pavement."

Madame smiled.

"Everything is so strong about you," she said; "especially your prejudices. And this house to which we are to be sent—is it large? Is it well situated? May one inquire?"

I could not understand her eyes, which were averted with something like a smile.

"It is one of the best situated houses in England," I answered, unguardedly, and Madame laughed outright.

"My friend," she said, "one reason why I like you is that you are not at all clever. This house is yours, and you are offering Lucille and me a home in our time of trouble—and I accept."

She laid her hand, as light as a leaf, on my shoulder, and when I looked up she was gone.

On the morning of Saturday, September 3d, I received a note from John Turner.

"If you have not gone—go!" he wrote.

Our departure had been fixed for a later date, but the yacht of an English friend had been lying in the port of Fecamp at my disposal for some days. We embarked there the same evening, having taken train at the St. Lazare station within two hours of the receipt of John Turner's warning. The streets of Paris, as we drove through them, were singularly quiet, and men passing their friends on the pavement nodded in silence, without exchanging other greeting. Hope seemed at last to have folded her wings and fled from the bright city. Some indefinable knowledge of coming catastrophe hovered over all.

It was a quiet sunset that clothed sea and sky with a golden splendour as we steamed out of Fecamp harbour that evening. I walked on the deck of the trim yacht with its captain until a late hour, and looked my last on the white cliffs and headlands of the doomed land about midnight—the hour at which the news was spreading over France, as black, swift and terrible as night itself, that hope was dead, that the whole army had been captured at Sedan, and the Emperor himself made prisoner. All this, however, we did not learn until we landed in England, although I have no doubt that John Turner knew it when he gave us so sharp a warning.

The weather was favourable to us, and the ladies came on deck the next morning in a calm sea as we sped past the North Foreland between the Goodwin Lightships and the land. It was a lovely morning, and the sea all stripes of deep blue and green, and even yellow where the great sand banks of the Thames estuary lay beneath the rippled surface.

Lucille thought but little of England, as she judged it from the tame bluffs of Thanet.

"Are these the famous white cliffs of England?" she said to the captain, for she rarely addressed herself unnecessarily to me. "Why they are but one quarter of the height of those of St. Valery that I saw from the cabin window last night."

The captain, a simple man, sought to prove that England had counterbalancing advantages. He knew not that in certain humours a woman will find fault with anything. I thought that Mademoiselle took exception to the poor cliffs because they were those of my native land.

Madame proved more amenable to reason, however, and the captain, whose knowledge of French was not great, made an easier convert of her than of Lucille, who spoke English prettily enough, while her mother knew only the one tongue.

"There is bad weather coming," said the captain to me later in the day. "And I wish the tide served for Lowestoft harbour earlier than ten o'clock."

We anchored just astern of the coast-service gunboat, and a few hundred yards south of the pier at Lowestoft, awaiting the rise of the tide. At eleven o'clock we moved in, and passing through the dock into the river, anchored there for the night. I gave Madame the choice of passing the night on board and going ashore to the hotel, as it was too late to drive to Hopton. She elected to remain on board.

As ill fortune would have it, the evil weather foreseen by the captain came upon us in the night, and daylight next morning showed a grey and hopeless sea, with lowering clouds and a slantwise rain driving across all. The tide was low when the ladies came on deck, and the muddy banks of the river looked dismal enough, while the flat meadowland stretched away on all sides into a dim and mournful perspective of mist and rain.

The Hopton carriage was awaiting us at the landing-stage, and to those unaccustomed to such work the landing in a small boat no doubt presented difficulties and dangers of which we men took no account. The streets of Lowestoft were sloppy and half-deserted as we drove through them. A few fishermen in their oilskins seemed to emphasise the wetness and dismalness of England as they hurried down to the harbour in their great sea-boots. On the uplands a fine drizzle veiled the landscape, and showed the gnarled and sparse trees to small advantage.

Lucille sat with close-pressed lips and looked out of the streaming windows. There were unshed tears in her eyes, and I grimly realised the futility of human effort. All my plans had been frustrated by a passing rain.

At home, however, I found all comfortable enough, and fires alight in the hall and principal rooms.

It was late in the day that I came upon Lucille alone in the drawing-room. She was looking out of the window across the bleak table-land to the sea.

"I am sorry, Mademoiselle," I said, suddenly conscious of the stiff bareness of my ancestral home, "that things are not brighter. I have done my best."

"Thank you," she said, and there was still resentment in her voice. "You have been very kind."

She stood for a few moments in silence, and then turning flashed an angry glance at me.

"I do not know who constituted you our protector," she said scornfully.

"Fate, Mademoiselle."



Chapter XVI

Exile

"Il y a donc des malheurs tellement bien caches que ceux qui en sont la cause, ne les devinent meme pas."

The first to show kindness to the ladies exiled at Hopton was Isabella Gayerson, who, in response to a letter from the rightful owner of the old manor house, called on Madame de Clericy. Isabella's pale face, her thin-lipped, determined mouth and reserved glance seem to have made no very favourable impression on Madame, who indeed wrote of her as a disappointed woman, nursing some sorrow or grievance in her heart.

With Lucille, however, Isabella speedily inaugurated a friendship, to which Lucille's knowledge of English no doubt contributed largely, for Isabella knew but little French.

"Lucille," wrote Madame to me, for I had returned to London in order to organise a more active pursuit of Charles Miste, "Lucille admires your friend Miss Gayerson immensely, and says that the English demoiselles suggest to her a fine and delicate porcelain—but it seems to me," Madame added, "that the grain is a hard one."

So rapid was the progress of this friendship that the two girls often met either at Hopton or at Little Corton, two miles away, where Isabella, now left an orphan, lived with an elderly aunt for her companion.

Girls, it would appear, possess a thousand topics of common interest, a hundred small matters of mutual confidence, which conduce to a greater intimacy than men and boys ever achieve. In a few weeks Lucille and Isabella were at Christian names, and sworn allies, though any knowing aught of them would have inclined to the suspicion that here, at all events, the confidences were not mutual, for Isabella Gayerson was a woman in a thousand in her power of keeping a discreet counsel. I, who have been intimate with her since childhood, can boast of no great knowledge to this day of her inward hopes, thoughts and desires.

The meetings, it would appear, took place more often at Hopton than in Isabella's home.

"I like Hopton," she said to Lucille one day, in her quiet and semi-indifferent way. "I have many pleasant associations in this house. The squire was always kind to me."

"And I suppose you played in these sleepy old rooms as a child," said Lucille, looking round at the portraits of dead and gone Howards, whose mistakes were now forgotten. "Yes."

Lucille waited, but the conversation seemed to end there naturally. Isabella had nothing more to tell of those bygone days. And, unlike other women, when she had nothing to say she remained silent.

"Did you know Mr. Howard's mother?" asked Lucille presently. "I have often wondered what sort of woman she must have been."

"I did not know her," was the answer, made more openly. It was only in respect to herself that Isabella cultivated reticence. It is so easy to be candid about one's neighbour's affairs. "Neither did he—it was a great misfortune."

"Is it not always a great misfortune?"

"Yes—but in this case especially so."

"How? What do you mean, Isabella?" asked Lucille, in her impulsive way. "You are so cold and reserved. Are all Englishwomen so? It is so difficult to drag things out of you."

"Because there is nothing to drag."

"Yes, there is. I want to know why it was such a special misfortune that Mr. Howard should never have known his mother. You may not be interested in him, but I am. My mother is so fond of him—my father trusted him."

"Ah!"

"There, again," cried Lucille, with a laugh of annoyance. "You say 'Ah!' and it means nothing. I look at your face and it says nothing. With us it is different—we have a hundred little exclamations—look at mother when she talks—but in England when you say 'Ah!' you seem to mean nothing.."

Lucille laughed and looked at Isabella, who only smiled.

"Well?"

"Well," answered Isabella, reluctantly, "if Mr. Howard's mother had lived he might have been a better man."

"You call him Mr. Howard," cried Lucille, darting into one of those side issues by which women so often reach their goal. "Do you call him so to his face?"

"No."

"What do you call him?" asked Lucille, with the persistence of a child on a trifle.

"Dick."

"And yet you do not like him?"

"I have never thought whether I like him or not—one does not think of such questions with people who are like one's own family."

"But surely," said Lucille, "one cannot like a person who is not good?"

"Of course not," answered the other, with her shadowy smile. "At least it is always so written in books."



After this qualified statement Isabella sat with her firm white hands clasped together in idleness on her lap. She was not a woman to fill in the hours with the trifling occupation of the work-basket, and yet was never aught but womanly in dress, manner, and, as I take it, thought. Lucille's fingers, on the contrary, were never still, and before she had lived at Hopton a fortnight she had half a dozen small protegees in the village for whom she fashioned little garments.

It was she who broke the short silence—her companion seemed to be waiting for that or for something else.

"Do you think," she asked, "that mother trusts Mr. Howard too much? She places implicit faith in all he says or does—just as my father did when he was alive."

Isabella—than whom none was more keenly alive to my many failings—paused before she answered, in her measured way:

"It all depends upon his motive in undertaking the management of your affairs."

"Oh—he is paid," said Lucille, rather hurriedly. "He is paid, of course."

"This house is his; the land, so far as you can see from any of the windows, is his also. He has affairs of his own to manage, which he neglects. A mere salary seems an insufficient motive for so deep an interest as he displays."

Lucille did not answer for some moments. Indeed, her needlework seemed at this moment to require careful attention.

"What other motive can he have?" she asked at length, indifferently.

"I do not understand the story of the large fortune that slipped so unaccountably through his fingers," murmured Isabella, and her hearer's face cleared suddenly.

"Alphonse Giraud's fortune?"

"Yes," said Isabella, looking at her companion with steady eyes, "Monsieur Giraud's fortune."

"It was stolen, as you know—for I have told you about it—by my father's secretary, Charles Miste."

"Yes; and Dick Howard says that he will recover it," laughed Isabella.

"Why not?"

"Why not, indeed? He will have good use for it. He has always been a spendthrift."

"What do you mean?" cried Lucille, laying down her work. "What can you mean, Isabella?"

"Nothing," replied the other, who had risen, and was standing by the mantelpiece looking down at the wood fire with one foot extended to its warmth. "Nothing—only I do not understand."

It would appear that Isabella's lack of comprehension took a more active form than that displayed in the conversation reported, tant bien que mal, from subsequent hearsay. Indeed, it has been my experience that when a woman fails to comprehend a mystery—whether it be her own affair or not—it is rarely for the want of trying to sift it.

That Isabella Gayerson made further attempt to discover my motives in watching over Madame de Clericy and Lucille was rendered apparent to me not very long afterwards. It was, in fact, in the month of November, while Paris was still besieged, and rumours of Commune and Anarchy reached us in tranquil England, that I had the opportunity of returning in small part the hospitality of Alphonse Giraud.

Wounded and taken prisoner during the disastrous retreat upon the capital, my friend obtained after a time his release under promise to take no further part in the war, a promise the more freely given that his hurt was of such a nature that he could never hope to swing a sword in his right hand again.

This was forcibly brought home to me when I met Giraud at Charing Cross station, when he extended to me his left hand.

"The other I cannot offer you," he cried, "for a sausage-eating Uhlan, who smelt shockingly of smoke, cut the tendons of it."

He lifted the hand hidden in a black silk handkerchief worn as a sling, and swaggered along the platform with a military air and bearing far above his inches.

We dined together, and he passed that night in my rooms in London, where I had a spare bed. He evinced by his every word and action that spontaneous affection which he had bestowed upon me. We had, moreover, a merry evening, and only once, so far as I remember, did he look at me with a grave face.

"Dick," he then said, "can you lend me a thousand francs? I have not one sou."

"Nor I," was my reply. "But you can have a thousand francs."

"The Vicomtesse writes me that you are supplying them with money during the present standstill in France. How is that?" he said, putting the notes I gave him into his purse.

"I do not know," I answered; "but I seem to be able to borrow as much as I want. I am what you call in Jewry. I have mortgaged everything, and am not quite sure that I have not mortgaged you."

We talked very gravely of money, and doubtless displayed a vast ignorance of the subject. All that I can remember is, that we came to no decision, and laughingly concluded that we were both well sped down the slope of Avernus.

It had been arranged that we should go down to Hopton the following day, where Giraud was to pass a few weeks with the ladies in exile. And I thought—for Giraud was transparent as the day—that the wounded hand, the bronze of battle-field and camp, and the dangers lived through, aroused a hope that Lucille's heart might be touched. For myself, I felt that none of these were required, and was sure that Giraud's own good qualities had already won their way.

"She can, at all events, not laugh at this," he said, lifting the hurt member, "or ridicule our great charge. Oh, Dick, mon ami, you have missed something," he cried, to the astonishment of the porters in Liverpool Street station. "You have missed something in life, for you have never fought for France! Mon Dieu!—to hear the bugle sound the charge—to see the horses, those brave beasts, throw up their heads as they recognised the call—to see the faces of the men! Dick, that was life—real life! To hear at last the crash of the sabres all along the line, like a butler throwing his knife-box down the back stairs."

We reached Hopton in the evening, and I was not too well pleased to find that Isabella had been invited to dine, "to do honour," as Lucille said, to a "hero of the great retreat."

"We knew also," added Madame, addressing me, "that such old friends as Miss Gayerson and yourself would be glad to meet."

And Isabella gave me a queer smile.

During dinner the conversation was general and mostly carried on in English, in which tongue Alphonse Giraud discovered a wealth of humour. In the drawing-room I had an opportunity of speaking to Madame de Clericy of her affairs, to which report I also begged the attention of Lucille.

It appeared to me that there was in the atmosphere of my own home some subtle feeling of distrust or antagonism against myself, and once I thought I intercepted a glance of understanding exchanged by Lucille and Isabella. We were at the moment talking of Giraud's misfortunes, which, indeed, that stricken soldier bore with exemplary cheerfulness.

"What is," he asked, "the equivalent of our sou when that coin is used as the symbol of penury?" and subsequently explained to Isabella with much vivacity that he had not a brass farthing in the world.

During the time that I spoke to Madame of her affairs, Alphonse and Isabella were engaged in a game of billiards in the hall, where stood the table; but their talk seemed of greater interest than the game, for I heard no sound of the balls.

The ladies retired early, Isabella passing the night at Hopton, and Alphonse and I were left alone with our cigars. In a few moments I was aware that the feeling of antagonism against myself had extended itself to Alphonse Giraud, who smoked in silence, and whose gaiety seemed suddenly to have left him. Not being of an expansive nature, I omitted to tax Giraud with coldness—a proceeding which would, no doubt, have been wise towards one so frank and open.

Instead I sat smoking glumly, and might have continued silent till bedtime had not a knocking at the door aroused us. The snow was lying thickly on the ground, and the flakes drove into the house when I opened the door, expecting to admit the coast guardsman, who often came for help or a messenger in times of shipwreck. It was, however, a lad who stood shaking himself in the hall—a telegraph messenger from Yarmouth, who, having walked the whole distance, demanded six shillings for his pains, and received ten, for it was an evil night.

I opened the envelope, and read that the message had been despatched that evening by the manager of a well-known London bank:

"Draft for five thousand pounds has been presented for acceptance—compelled to cash it to-morrow morning."

"Miste is astir at last," I said, handing the message to Giraud.



Chapter XVII

On the Track

"Le vrai moyen d'etre trompe c'est de se croire plus fin que les autres."

I stole out of the house before daybreak the next morning, and riding to Yarmouth, took a very early and (with perhaps a subtle appropriateness) a very fishy train to London.

So ill equipped was I to contend with a financier of Miste's force that I did not even know the hour at which the London banks opened for business. A general idea, however, that half-past ten would make quite a long enough day for such work made me hope to be in time to frustrate or perchance to catch red-handed this clever miscreant.

The train was due to arrive at Liverpool Street station at ten o'clock, and ten minutes after that hour I stepped from a cab at the door of the great bank in Lombard Street.

"The manager," I said, hurriedly, to an individual in brass buttons and greased hair, whose presence in the building was evidently for a purely ornamental purpose. I was shown into a small glass room like a green-house, where sat two managers, as under a microscope—a living example of frock-coated respectability and industry to half a hundred clerks who were ever peeping that way as they turned the pages of their ledgers and circulated in an undertone the latest chop-house tale.

"Mr. Howard," said the manager, with his watch in his hand. "I was waiting for you."

"Have you cashed the draft?"

"Yes—at ten o'clock. The payee was waiting on the doorstep for us to open. The clerk delayed as long as possible, but we could not refuse payment. Hundred-pound notes as usual. Never trust a man who takes it in hundred-pound notes. Here are the numbers. As hard as you can to the Bank of England and stop them! You may catch him there."

He pushed me out of the room, sending with me the impression that inside the frock-coat, behind the bland gold-rimmed spectacles, there was yet something left of manhood and that vague quality called fight, which is surely hard put to live long between four glass walls.

The cabman, who perhaps scented sport, was waiting for me though I had paid him, and as I drove along Lombard Street I thought affectionately of Miste's long thin neck, and wondered whether there would be room for the two of us in the Bank of England.

The high-born reader doubtless has money in the Funds, and knows without the advice of a penniless country squire that the approach to the Bank of England consists of a porch through which may be discerned a small courtyard. Opening on this yard are three doors, and that immediately opposite to the porch gives entrance to the department where gold and silver are exchanged for notes.

As I descended from the cab I looked through the porch, and there, across the courtyard, I saw the back of a man who was pushing his way through the swing doors. Charles Miste again! I paid the cabman, and noting the inches of the two porters in their gorgeous livery, reflected with some satisfaction that Monsieur Miste would have to reckon with three fairly heavy men before he got out of the courtyard.

There are two swing doors leading into the bank, and the man passing in there glanced back as he crossed the second threshold, giving me, however, naught but the momentary gleam of a white face. Arrived in the large room I looked quickly around it. Two men were changing money, a third bent over the table to sign a note. None of these could be Charles Miste. There was another exit leading to the body of the building.

"Has a gentleman passed through here?" I asked a clerk, whose occupation seemed to consist in piling sovereigns one upon another.

"Yes," he said, through his counting.

"Ah!" thought I. "Now I have him like a rat in a trap."

"He cannot get through?" I said.

"Can't he—you bet," said the young man with much humour.

I hurried on, and at last found the exit to Lothbury.

"Has a gentleman just passed out this way?" I inquired of a porter, who looked sleepy and dignified.

"Three have passed out this five minutes—old gent with a squint, belongs to Coutts's—tall fair man—tall dark man."

"The dark one is mine," I said. "Which way?"

"Turned to the left."

I hurried on with a mental note that sleepy men may see more than they appear to do. Standing on the crowded pavement of Lothbury, I realised that Madame de Clericy was right, and I little better than a fool. For it was evident that I had been tricked, and that quite easily by Charles Miste. To seek him in the throng of the city was futile, and an attempt predestined to failure. I went back, however, to the bank, and handed in the numbers of the stolen notes. Here again I learnt that to refuse payment was impossible, and that all I could hope was that each note changed would give me a clue as to the whereabouts of the thief. Each forward step in the matter showed me more plainly the difficulties of the task I had undertaken, and my own incapacity for such work. Nothing is so good for a man's vanity as contact with a clever scoundrel.

I resolved to engage the entire services of some one who, without being a professed thief-catcher, could at all events meet Charles Miste on his own slippery ground. With the help of the bank manager, I found one, named Sander, an accountant, who made an especial study of the shadier walks of finance, and this man set to work the same afternoon. It was his opinion that Miste had been confined in Paris by the siege, and had only just effected his escape, probably with one of the many permits obtained from the American Minister at this time by persons passing themselves as foreigners.

The same evening I received information from an official source that a man answering to my description of Miste had taken a ticket at Waterloo station for Southampton. The temptation was again too strong for one who had been brought up in an atmosphere and culture of sport. I set off by the mail train for Southampton, and amused myself by studying the faces of the passengers on the Jersey and Cherbourg boats. There was no sailing for Havre that night. At Radley's Hotel, where I had secured a room, I learnt that an old gentleman and lady with their daughter had arrived by the earlier train, and no one else. At the railway station I could hear of none answering to my description.

If Charles Miste had entered the train at Waterloo station, he had disappeared in his shadowy way en route.

During the stirring months of the close of 1870, men awoke each morning with a certain glad expectancy. For myself—even in my declining years—the stir of events in the outer world and near at home is preferable to a life of that monotony which I am sure ages quickly those that live it. Circumstances over which I exercised but a nominal control—a description of human life it appears to me—had thrown my lot into close connection with France, that "light-hearted heroine of tragic story"; and at this time I watched with even a greater eagerness than other Englishmen the grim tragedy slowly working to its close in Paris.

It makes an old man of me to think that some of those who watched the stupendous events of '70 are now getting almost too old to preserve the keenest remembrance of their emotions, while many of the actors on that great stage have passed beyond earthly shame or glory. Keen enough is my own memory of the thrill with which I opened my newspaper, morning after morning, and read that Paris still held out.

Before quitting London, I had heard that the French had recaptured the small town of Le Bourget, in the neighborhood of Paris, and were holding it successfully against the Prussian attack. Telegraphic communication with Paris itself had long been suspended, and we, watchers on the hither side, only heard vague rumours of the doings within the ramparts. It appeared that each day saw an advance in the organisation of the defence. The distribution of food was now carried out with more system, and the defenders of the capital were confident alike of being able to repel assault and withstand a siege.

The Empress had long been in England, whither, indeed, she had fled, with the assistance of a worthy and courageous gentleman, her American dentist, within a few hours of our departure from Fecamp. The Emperor, a broken man bearing the seed of death, had been allowed to join her at Chiselhurst, thus returning to the land where he had found asylum in his early adversity. It is strange how the Buonapartes, from the beginning to the close of their wondrous dynasty, had to deal with England.

The first of that great line died a captive to English arms, the last perished fighting our foes.

"Paris has not fallen yet, has it, sir?" the waiter asked me when he brought my breakfast on the following day—and I think the world talked of little else than Paris that rainy morning. For the siege had now lasted six weeks, and the ring of steel and iron was closing around the doomed city.

The London newspapers had not arrived, so the morning news was passed from mouth to mouth with that eagerness which is no respecter of persons. Strangers spoke to each other in the coffee-room, and no man hesitated to ask a question of his neighbour—the whole world seemed akin. In those days Southampton was the port of discharge for the Indian liners, and the hotel was full, every table being occupied. I looked over the bronzed faces of these administrators, by sword and pen, of our great empire, and soon decided that Charles Miste was not among them. The wisdom that cometh in the morning had, in fact, forced me to conclude that the search for the miscreant was better left in the hands of Mr. Sander and his professional assistants.



At the breakfast table I received a telegram from Sander informing me that Paris still held out. He wired me this advice according to arrangement; for he had decided that Miste, feeling, like all Frenchmen, ill at ease abroad, was only awaiting the surrender to return to Paris, and there begin more active measures to realise his wealth. As soon, therefore, as the city fell I was to hasten thither and there meet Sander.

The arrival of my message occasioned a small stir in the room, and many keen glances were directed towards me as I read it. I handed it to my nearest neighbour, explaining that he in turn was at liberty to pass the paper on. It was not long before the waiter came to me with the request that he might make known to a young French lady travelling alone any news that would interest one of her nationality.

"Certainly," answered I. "Take the telegram to her that she may read it for herself."

"But, sir, she knows no English, and although I understand a little French, I cannot speak it."

"Then bring me the telegram, and point out to me the lady."

"It is the lady who arrived yesterday," answered the waiter. "She came, as I understand, with an old lady and gentleman, but they have left this morning for the Isle of Wight, and she remains alone."

He indicated the fair traveller, and I might have guessed her nationality from the fact that, unlike the Englishwomen present, she was breakfasting in her hat. She was a pretty woman—no longer quite young—with a pale oval face and deep brown hair. As I approached she, having breakfasted, was drawing her veil down over her face, and subsequently attended to her hat with pretty, studied movements of the hands and arms which were essentially French.

She returned my bow with quiet self-possession, and graciously looked to me to speak.

"The waiter tells me," I said in French, "that I am fortunate enough to possess some news which may be of interest to you."

"If it is news of France, Monsieur, I am sur des epingles until I hear it."

I laid the telegram before her, and she looked at it with a pretty shake of the head which wafted to me some faint and pleasant scent.

"Translate, if you please," she said. "I blush for an ignorance of which you might have spared me the confession."

It was a pretty profile that bent over the telegram, and I wished that I had arrived sooner, before she had lowered her veil. She followed my translation with a nod of the head, but did not raise her eyes.

"And this word?" pointing out the name of my agent with so keen an interest that she touched my hand with her gloved fingers. "This word 'Sander,' what is that?"

"That," I answered, "is the name of my agent, 'Sander,' the sender of the telegram."

"Ah—yes, and he is in London? Yes."

"And is he reliable?—excuse my pertinacity, Monsieur—you know, for a Frenchwoman—who has friends at the front—" she gave a little shiver. "Mon Dieu! it is killing."

She gave a momentary glance with wonderful eyes, which made me wish she would look up again. I wondered whom she had at the front.

"Yes, he is reliable," I answered. "You may take this news, Mademoiselle, as absolutely true."

And then, seeing that she was traveling alone, I made so bold as to place my poor services at her disposal. She answered very prettily, in a low voice, and declined with infinite tact. She had no reason, she said, at the moment to trespass on my valuable time, but if I would tell my name she would not fail to avail herself of my offer should occasion arise during her stay in England. I gave her my card, and as her attitude betokened dismissal, returned to my table, accompanied thither by the scowls of some of the young military gentlemen present.

Had I been a younger fellow, open to the fire of any dark eyes, I might have surrendered at discretion to the glance that accompanied her parting bow. As it was, I left her, desiring strongly that she might have need of my service. For reasons which the reader knows, all Frenchwomen were of special interest in my eyes, and this young lady wielded a strong and lively charm, to which I was fully alive so soon as she raised her deep eyes to mine.



Chapter XVIII

A Dark Horse

"Le plus grand art d'un habile homme est celui de savoir cacher son habilete."

Later in the day I was ignominiously recalled to London.

"Useless to remain in Southampton. First note has been changed in London," Sander telegraphed to me.

While lunching at the hotel, I learnt from the waiter that the young French lady had received letters causing her to change her plans, and that she had left hurriedly for Dover, the waiter thought.

Sander came to see me the same evening at my club in London.

"There are at least two in it—probably three," he said. "The note was changed at Cook's office, in the purchase of two tourist tickets to Baden-Baden, which can, of course, be resold or used in part only. It was done by an old man—wore a wig, they tell me—but he was genuine; not a young man in disguise, I mean."

If Mr. Sander knew more he did not take me further into his confidence. He was a pale-faced, slight man, having the outward appearance of a city clerk. But the fellow had a keen look, and there was something in the lines of his thin, determined lips that gave one confidence. I saw that he did not reciprocate this feeling. Indeed, I think he rather despised me for a thick-headed country bumpkin.

He glanced around the gorgeously decorated smoking-room of the club with a look half-contemptuous and half-envious, and sat restlessly in the luxurious arm-chair native to club smoking-rooms, as one cultivating a Spartan habit of life.

"It is probable," he said bluntly, "that you are being watched."

"Yes—I know the bailiffs keep their eye on me."

"I suppose you are not going away to shoot or anything like that?"

"I can go to France and look after Madame de Clericy's property," answered I, and the prospect of a change of scene was not unpleasant to me. For, to tell the truth, I was ill at ease at this time, and while in England fell victim to a weak and unmanly longing to be at Hopton. For, however strong a man's will may be, it seems that one woman in his path must have the power to inspire him with such a longing that he cannot free his mind of thoughts of her, nor interest himself in any other part of the world but that which she inhabits. Thus, to a grey-haired man who surely might have been wiser, it was actual misery to be in England and not at Hopton, where Alphonse Giraud was no doubt happy enough in the neighbourhood of the woman we both loved.



"Yes," said Sander to me, after long thought. "Do that. I shall get on better if you are out of England."

The man's air, as I have said, inspired confidence; and I, seeking an excuse to be moving, determined to obey him without delay. Moreover, I was beginning to realise more and more the difficulties of my task, and the remembrance of what had passed at Hopton made failure singularly distasteful.

The Vicomtesse had property in the Morbihan, to which I could penetrate without great risk of arrest. We had heard nothing from the agent in charge of this estate since the outbreak of war, and it seemed probable that the man had volunteered for active service in one of the Breton regiments, raised in all haste at this time.

Writing a note to Madame, I left England the next day, intending to be absent a week or ten days. My journey was uneventful, and needs not to be detailed here.

During the writer's absence in stricken France, Miss Isabella Gayerson, who seemed as restless as himself, suddenly bethought herself to open her London house and fill it with guests. It must be remembered that this lady was an heiress, and, if report be true, more than one needy nobleman offered her a title and that which he called his heart, only to meet with a cold refusal. I who know her so well can fancy that these disinterested gentlemen hesitated to repeat the experiment. It is vanity that too often makes a woman consent at last (though sometimes Love may awake and do it), and I think that Isabella was never vain.

"I have good reason to be without vanity," she once said in my hearing, but I do not know what she meant. The remark, as I remember, was made in answer to Lucille, who happened to say that a woman can dress well without being vain, and laughingly gave Isabella as an example.

Isabella's chief reason in coming to London during the winter was a kind one—namely, to put a temporary end to an imprisonment in the country which was irksome to Lucille. And I make no doubt the two ladies were glad enough to avail themselves of this opportunity of seeing London. God made the country and men the towns, it is said; and I think they made them for the women.

On returning to London I found letters from Madame de Clericy explaining this change of residence, and in the same envelope a note from Isabella (her letters were always kinder than her speech), inviting me to stay in Hyde Park Street.

"We are sufficiently old friends," she wrote, "to allow thus of a general invitation, and if it shares the usual fate of such, the fault will be yours, and not mine."

The letter was awaiting me at the club, and I deemed it allowable to call in response the same afternoon. The news of Lucille's engagement to Alphonse Giraud was ever dangling before my eyes, and I wished to get the announcement swallowed without further suspense.

Alphonse, a perfect squire of dames, was engaged in dispensing thin bread and butter when I entered the room, feeling, as I feel to this day, somewhat out of place and heavy amid the delicate ornaments and flowers of a lady's drawing-room. My reception was not exactly warm, and I was struck by the pallor of Isabella's face, which, however, gave place to a more natural colour before long. Madame alone showed gladness at the sight of me, and held out both her hands in a welcome full of affection. I thought Lucille's black dress very becoming to her slim form.

We talked, of course, of the war, before which all other topics faded into insignificance at that time—and I had but disquieting news from France. The siege had now lasted seven weeks, and none knew what the end might be. The opportunity awaited the Frenchman, but none rose to meet it. France blundered on in the hands of political mediocrities, as she has done ever since.

I gathered that Alphonse was staying in the house, and wondered at the news, considering that Isabella knew him but slightly. It was the Vicomtesse who gave me the information, with one of her quiet glances that might mean much or nothing. For myself, I confess they usually possessed but small significance—men being of a denser (though perhaps deeper) comprehension than women, who catch on the wing a thought that flies past such as myself, and is lost.

I could only conclude that Isabella was seeking the happiness of her new-found friend in thus offering Giraud an opportunity, which he doubtless seized with avidity.

Isabella was kind enough to repeat her invitation, which, however, I declined with Madame's eye upon me and Lucille's back suddenly turned in my direction. Lucille, in truth, was talking to Alphonse, and gaily enough. He had the power of amusing her, in which I was deficient, and she was always merry.

While we were thus engaged, a second visitor was announced, but I did not hear his name. His face was unknown to me—a narrow, foxy face it was—and the man's perfect self-assurance had something offensive in it, as all shams have. I did not care for his manner towards Isabella—which is, however, as I understand, quite a la mode d'aujourd'hui—a sort of careless, patronising admiration, with no touch of respect in it.

He made it quite apparent that he had come to see the young mistress of the house, and no one else, acknowledging the introductions to the remainder of the company with a scant courtesy. He talked to Isabella with a confidential inclination of his body towards her as they sat on low chairs with a small table between them, and it was easy to see that she appreciated the attention of this middle-aged man of the world.

"You see, Miss Gayerson," I heard him say with a bold glance, for he was one of those fine fellows who can look straight enough at a woman, but do not care to meet the eye of a man. "You see, I have taken you at your word. I wonder if you meant me to."

"I always mean what I say," answered Isabella; and I thought she glanced in my direction to see whether I was listening.

"A privilege of your sex—also to mean what you don't say."

At this moment Madame spoke to me, and I heard no more, but we may be sure that his further conversation was of a like intellectual and noteworthy standard. There was something in the man's lowered tone and insinuating manner that made me set him down as a lawyer.

"Do you notice," said Madame to me, "that Lucille is in better spirits?"

"Yes—I notice it with pleasure. Good spirits are for the young—and the old."

"I suppose you are right," said Madame. "Before the business of life begins, and after it is over."

Apropos of business, I gave the Vicomtesse at this time an account of my journey to Audierne, and was able to inform her that I had brought back money with me sufficient for her present wants.

While I was thus talking I heard, through my own speech, that Isabella invited the stranger to dine on the following Thursday.

"I have another engagement," he answered, consulting a small note-book. "But that can be conveniently forgotten."

Isabella seemed to like such exceedingly small social change, for she smiled brightly as he rose to take his leave.

To the Vicomtesse he paid a pretty little compliment in French, anticipating much enjoyment on the following Thursday in improving upon his slight acquaintance. He shook hands with me, his gaze fixed on my necktie. He then bowed to Lucille and Alphonse, who were talking together at the end of the room, and made a self-possessed exit.

"Who is your friend?" I asked Isabella bluntly, when the door was closed.

"A Mr. Devar. Does he interest you?"

There was something in Isabella's tone that betokened a readiness, or perhaps a desire, to fight Mr. Devar's battles. Had I been a woman, or wiser than I have ever proved myself, I should, no doubt, have ignored this challenge instead of promptly meeting it by my answer:

"I cannot say he does."

"You seem to object to him," she said sharply. "Please remember that he is a friend of mine."

"He cannot be one of long standing," I was foolish enough to answer. "For he is not an East Country man, and I never heard of him before."

"As a matter of fact," said Isabella, "I met him at a ball in town last week, and he asked permission to call."

I gave a short laugh, and Isabella looked at me with calm defiance in her eyes. It was, of course, no business of mine, which knowledge probably urged me on to further blunders.

Isabella's mental attitude was a puzzle to me. She was ready enough to supply information respecting Mr. Devar, whose progress towards intimacy had, to say the least of it, been rapid. But she supplied, as I thought, from a small store. She alternately allayed and aroused an anxiety which was natural enough in so old a friend, and to a man who had moved among adventurers nearly all his life. Alfred Gayerson, her brother and my earliest friend, was now in Vienna. Isabella had no one to advise her. She was, I suppose, a forerunner of the advanced young women of to-day, who, with a diminutive knowledge of the world culled from the imaginative writings of females as ignorant, are pleased to consider themselves competent to steer a clean course over the shoals of life.

Isabella had had, as I understood, a certain experience of the ordinary fortune-hunters of society—pleasant enough fellows, no doubt, but lacking self-respect and manhood—and it seemed extraordinary that her eyes should be closed to Mr. Devar's manifold qualifications to the title.

"Perhaps," she said at length, "you also will do us the pleasure of dining with us on Thursday, as you appear to be so deeply interested in Mr. Devar despite your assurances to the contrary."

"I shall be most happy to do so," answered I—ungraciously, I fear—and there arose a sudden light, almost of triumph, to her usually repressed glance.

Alphonse Giraud acceded to my suggestion that he should walk with me towards my club. His manner towards me had been reserved and unnatural, and I wished to get to the bottom of his feeling in respect to one whom he had always treated as a friend. Isabella was the only person to suggest an objection to my proposal, reminding Alphonse, rather pointedly, that he had but time to dress for dinner.

"Well," I said, when we were turning into Piccadilly, "Miste has begun to give us a scent at last."

"It is not so much in Monsieur Miste as in the money that I am interested," answered Giraud, swinging his cane, and looking about him with a simulated interest in his surroundings.

"Ah!"

"Yes; and I am beginning to be convinced that I shall never see either."

"Indeed."

"Let us quit an unpleasant subject," said the Frenchman, after a pause, and in the manner of one seeking to avoid an impending quarrel. "What splendid horses you have in England! See that pair in the victoria? one could not tell them apart. And what action!"

"Yes," I answered, lamely enough; "we have good enough horses."

And before I could return to the subject, which no longer drew us together, but separated us, he dragged out his watch and hurriedly turned back, leaving me with a foolish and inexplicable sense of guilt.



Chapter XIX

Sport

"L'amour du mieux t'aura interdit le bien."

"Do I look as if I had come out of Paris in a balloon?" said John Turner, in answer to my suggestion that he had made use of a method of escape at that time popular. "No, I left by the Creteil gate, without drum or trumpet, or anything more romantic than a laissez-passer signed by Favre. There will be the devil to pay in Paris before another week has passed, and I am not going to disburse."

"In what way will he want paying?" I asked.

"Well," answered John Turner, dragging at the knees of his trousers, which garments invariably incommoded his stout legs, "Well, the Government of National Defence is beginning to show that it has been ill-named. Before long they will be replaced by a Government of National Ruin. The ass in the streets is wanting to bray in the Hotel de Ville, and will get there before he has finished."

"You are well out of it," said I, "and do not seem to have suffered by the siege."

"Next to being a soldier it is good to be a banker in time of war," said Turner, pulling down his waistcoat, which, indeed, had been in no way affected by the privations currently reported to be the lot of the besieged Parisians.

"What about Miste?" he added, abruptly.

"I have seen his back again, I do not believe the man has a face."

And I told my astute friend of my failure to catch Charles Miste at the Bank of England.

"Truth is," commented the banker, "that Monsieur Miste is an uncommonly smart rogue. You must be careful—when he does show you his face, have a care. And if you take my advice you will leave this little business to the men who know what they are about. It is not every one who knows the way to tackle a fellow carrying a loaded revolver. By the way, do you carry such a thing yourself?"

"Never had one in my life."

"Then buy one," said Turner. "I always wear one—in a pocket at the back, where neither I nor any one else can get at it. Sorry you could not come to luncheon," he continued. "I wanted to have a long talk with you."

He settled himself in the large arm-chair, which he completely filled. I like a man to be bulky in his advancing years.



"Take that chair," he said, "and this cigar. I suppose you want something to drink. Waiter, take this gentleman's order. You young fellows cannot smoke without drinking, nowadays—horrid bad habit. Waiter, bring me the same."

When we were alone, John Turner sat smoking and looking at me with beady, reflective eyes.

"You know, Dick," he said at length, "I have got you down in my will."

"Thanks—but you will last my time."

"Then it is no good, you think?" he inquired, with a chuckle.

"Not much."

"You want it now?" he suggested.

"No."

"Your father's son," commented my father's friend. "Stubborn and rude. A true Howard of Hopton. I have got you down in my will, however, and I'm going to interfere in your affairs. That is why I sent for you."

I smoked and waited.

"I take it," he went on in his short and breathless way, "that things are at a standstill somewhat in this position. If you marry Isabella Gayerson, you will have with her money, which is a tidy fortune, four thousand a year. If you don't have the young woman, you can live at Hopton, but without a sou to your name. You want to marry Mademoiselle, who thinks you are too old and too big a scoundrel. That is Mademoiselle's business. Giraud junior is also in love with Mademoiselle Lucille, who would doubtless marry him if he had the wherewithal. In the mean time she is coy—awaiting the result of your search. You are seeking Giraud's money, so that he may marry Mademoiselle of the bright eyes—you understand that, I suppose?"

"Thoroughly."

"That is all right. It is best to have these affairs clearly stated. Now, why the devil do you not ask Isabella to marry you—"

"To begin with, she would not have me," I interrupted.

"Nice girl, capable of a deep and passionate affection—I know these quiet women—two thousand five hundred a year."

"She wouldn't have me."

"Then ask her, and when she has refused you, fight the validity of your father's will."

"But she might not refuse me," said I. "She hates me, though! I know that. There is no one on earth with such a keen scent for my faults."

"Ye-es," said Turner slowly. "Well?"

"She might think it her duty to accept me on account of the will."

"Have you ever known a woman weigh duty against the inclination of her own heart?"

"I know little about women," replied I, "and doubt whether you know more."

"That is as may be. And you wouldn't marry Isabella for two thousand a year?"

"Not for twenty thousand," replied I, half in my wineglass.

"Virtuous young man! Why?"

I looked at Turner and laughed.

"A slip of a French girl," he muttered contemptuously. "No bigger round than the calf of my leg."

And I suppose he only spoke the truth.

He continued thus to give me much good advice, to which, no doubt, had I been prudent, I should have listened with entire faith. But my friend, like other worldly wiseacres, had many theories which he himself failed to put into practice. And as he spoke there was a twinkle in his eye, and a tone of scepticism in his voice, as if he knew that he was but whistling to the wind.

Then John Turner fell to abusing Miste and Giraud and the late poor Vicomte as a parcel of knaves and fools.

"Here am I," he cried, "with a bundle of my signatures being hawked about the world by a thief, and cannot stop one of them. Every one knows that my paper is good; the drafts will be negotiated from pillar to post like a Bank of England note, and the account will not be closed for years."

It was a vexatious matter for so distinguished a banker to be mixed in, and I could give him but little comfort. While I was still with him, however, a letter was brought to me which enlightened us somewhat. This communication was from my agent Sander, and bore the Brussels postmark.

"This Miste," he wrote, "is no ordinary scoundrel, but one who will want most careful treatment, or we shall lose the whole amount. I have now arrived at the conclusion that he has two accomplices, and one of these in London; for I am undoubtedly watched, and my movements are probably reported to Miste. Yourself and Monsieur Giraud are doubtless under surveillance also. I am always on Miste's heels, but never catch him up. It seems quite clear, from the inconsequence of his movements, that he is endeavouring to meet an accomplice, but that my presence so close upon his heels repeatedly scares them apart. He receives letters and telegrams at the Poste Restante, under the name of Marcel. So close was I upon his track, that at Bruges I caused him to break his appointment by a few hours only. He sent off a telegram, and made himself scarce only two hours before my arrival. This is a large affair, and we must have great patience. In the mean time, I think it probable that Miste will not endeavour to cash any more drafts. He only wants sufficient for current expenses, and will probably endeavour to negotiate the whole amount to some small foreign government in guise of a loan."

"That is what he will do," affirmed John Turner. "Persia or China of a needy South American state."

It pleased me at times to think that I could guess Lucille's thoughts, and indeed she made it plain at this time that she cherished some grudge against me. It was, I suppose, only natural that she should suspect me of lukewarmness in a search which, if successful, would inevitably militate to my own discomfiture. Alphonse Giraud was doubtless awaiting, with a half-concealed impatience, the moment when he might honourably press his suit. Thus, Charles Miste held us all in the hollow of his hand, and the news I had received was as important to others as to myself.

I therefore hurried to Hyde Park Street, and had the good fortune to find all the party within. I made known the contents of Sander's letter, adding thereto, for the benefit of the ladies, John Turner's comments and my own suspicions.

"We shall catch him yet!" cried Alphonse, forgetting in the excitement of the moment the dignified reserve which had of late stood between us. "Bravo, Howard! we shall catch him yet."

He wrung my hand effusively, and then, remembering himself, glanced at Isabella, as I thought, and lapsed into attentive and suspicious silence.

Having made my report I withdrew, and at the corner of the street was nearly run over by a private hansom cab, at that time a fashionable vehicle among men about town. I caught a glimpse of a courteous gloved hand, and Mr. Devar's face wreathed in the pleasantest of smiles.

"You omitted to tell me at what hour you dine," was the remark with which Mr. Devar made his entrance. He refused to accept a chair, and took his stand on the hearth-rug without monopolising the fire, and with perfect ease and a word for every one.

"As I drove here I passed your friend Mr. Howard," he said presently, and Isabella said "Ah!"

"Yes, and he looked somewhat absorbed."

Mr. Devar waited, and after a pause, kindly continued to interest himself in so unworthy a subject.

"Did you not tell me," he remarked, "that Mr. Howard is engaged on some—er—quixotic enterprise—the search for a fortune he has lost?"

"The fortune is Monsieur Giraud's," said the lady of the house.

Devar turned to Alphonse with a bow appropriately French.

"Then I congratulate Monsieur on his—possibilities."

His manner of speech was suggestive of a desire to conceal a glibness which is usually accounted a fault.

"And I hope that Mr. Howard's obvious absorption was not due to—discouragement."

"On the contrary," answered Isabella, "Mr. Howard has just given us a most hopeful report."

"Has he caught the thief?"

"No; but his agent, a Mr. Sander, writes from Brussels that he has traced the thief to the Netherlands, and there seems to be some probability that he will be taken."

"My experience of thieves," said Mr. Devar airily, "has been small. But I imagine they are hard to take when they once get away. Mr. Howard is, I fear, wasting his time."

Isabella answered nothing to this, though her pinched lips seemed to indicate a doubt whether such a waste was in reality going forward.

"Our neighbour's enterprise usually appears to be a waste of time, does it not?" he said, with the large tolerance of a man owning to many failings.

Alphonse shrugged his shoulders and spread out his hands with a gesture of helplessness, further accentuated by the bandage on his wrist.

"I do not so much want to catch the thief as to possess myself of the money," he said.

"You are charitable, Monsieur Giraud."

"No—I am poor."

Devar laughed in the pleasantest manner imaginable.

"And of course," he said, indicating the Frenchman's maimed hand, which was usually in evidence, "you are unable to undertake the search yourself?"

"As yet."

"Then you intend ultimately to join in the chase—you are a great sportsman, I hear?"

The graceful compliment was not lost upon Alphonse, who beamed upon his interlocutor.

"In a small way—in a small way," he answered. "Yes, when they strike a really good scent I shall follow, wounds or no wounds."

At this Mr. Devar expressed some concern, and made himself additionally agreeable. He refused still to be seated, saying that he had but come to ascertain the dinner hour on the following Thursday. Nevertheless, he prolonged his stay and made himself vastly fascinating.



Chapter XX

Underhand

"Le doute empoisonne tout et ne tue rien."

As I walked through the park towards Isabella's house on the evening of the dinner-party, Devar's hansom cab dashed past me and stopped a few yards farther on. The man must have had sharp eyes to recognise me in a London haze on a November evening. Devar leapt from his cab and came towards me.

"Shall I walk with you or will you drive with me?" he said.

Placed between two evil alternatives, I suggested that it would be better for his health to walk with me—hoping, although it was a dry night, that his shiny boots were too precious or tight for such exercise. Mr. Devar, however, made a sign to the groom to follow, and slipped his hand engagingly within my arm.

"Glad of the chance of a walk," he said. "Wish I was a free man like you, Howard, London would not often see me!"

"What would?" I asked, for I like to know where vermin harbours.

"Ah!"—he paused, and, as I thought, glanced at me. "The wide world. Should like, for instance, a roving commission such as yours—to look for a scoundrel with a lot of money-bags, who may be in London or Timbuctoo."

I walked on in silence, never having had quick speech or the habit of unburthening my soul to the first listener.

"Not likely to stay in London in November if he is a man of sense as well as enterprise," he added, jerking up the fur collar of his coat.

We walked on a little farther.

"Suppose you have no notion where he is?" said my bland companion, to which I made no articulate reply.

"Do you know?" he asked at length, as one in a corner.

"Do you want to know?" retorted I.

"Oh—no," with a laugh.

"That is well," said I finally. And we walked on for a space in silence, when my companion changed the conversation with that ease of manner under the direct snub which only comes from experience. Mr. Devar was certainly a good-natured person, for he forgave my rudeness as soon as it was uttered.

I know not exactly how he compassed it, but he restored peace so effectually that before we reached Hyde Park Street he had forced me to invite him to lunch with me at my club on the following Saturday. This world is certainly for the thick-skinned.

We entered Isabella's drawing-room, therefore, together, and a picture of brotherly love.

"Force of good example," explained Mr. Devar airily. "I saw Howard walking and walked with him."

There were assembled the house-party only, Devar and I being the guests of the evening. Isabella frowned as we entered together. I wondered why.

Devar attached himself to Alphonse Giraud, whom he led aside under pretext of examining a picture.

"Monsieur Giraud," he then said to him in French, "as a man of affairs I cannot but deplore your heedlessness."

He was a much older man than Giraud, and had besides the gift of uttering an impertinence as if under compulsion.

"But, my dear sir—" exclaimed Alphonse.

"Either you do not heed the loss of your fortune or you are blind."

"You mean that I cannot trust my friend," said Alphonse.

Mr. Devar spread out his hands in denial of any such meaning.

"Monsieur Giraud," he said, "I am a man of the world, and also a lawyer. I suppose I am as charitable as my neighbours. But it is never wise to trust a single man with a large sum of money. None of us knows his own weakness. Put not thy neighbour into temptation."

Which sounded like Scripture, and doubtless passed as such. Mr. Devar nodded easily, smiled like an advertisement of dentifrice, and moved back to the centre of the room. It naturally fell to him to offer his arm to the hostess, while Madame accompanied me to the dining-room. Alphonse and Lucille paired off, as it seemed to me, very naturally.

As we passed down the stairs I fell into thought, and made a mental survey of all these people as they stood in respect to myself. Alphonse had progressed, as was visible on his telltale face, from suspicion to something near hostility. Isabella—always a puzzle—was more enigmatic than ever; for she showed herself keenly alive to my faults, and made no concealment of her distrust, though she threw open her house to me with a persistent and almost anxious hospitality. Here was no friend. Had I, in Isabella, an enemy? Of Devar, all that I could conclude was that he was suspicious. His interest in myself was less gratifying than the deepest indifference. In Madame de Clericy I had one who wished to be my friend, but her attitude towards me was inscrutable. She seemed to encourage Alphonse. Did she, like the rest of them, suspect me of seeking to frustrate his suit by withholding his fortune? She merely looked at me, and would say no word. And of Lucille, what could I think but that she hated me?

At dinner we spoke of the siege, and of those sad affairs of France which drew all men's thoughts at this time. Mr. Devar was, I remember, well informed on the points of the campaign, and seemed to talk of them with equal facility in French and English; but I disliked the man, and determined to make my thoughts known to Isabella.

It was no easy matter to outstay Mr. Devar, but, asserting my position as an old friend, this was at last accomplished. When we were left alone, Alphonse must have divined my intention in the quick way that was natural to him; for he engaged Lucille and her mother in a discussion of the latest news, which he translated from an evening paper. Indeed, Lucille and he put their heads together over the journal, and seemed to find it damnably amusing.

"Isabella," I said, "will you allow me to make some inquiries concerning this man Devar before you ask him to your house again?"

"Are you afraid that Mr. Devar will interfere with your own private schemes?" she replied, in that tone of semi-banter which she often assumed towards me when we were alone.

"Thanks—no. I am quite capable of taking care of myself, so far as Mr. Devar is concerned. It is—if you will believe it—in regard to yourself that I have misgivings. I look upon myself as in some sort your protector."

She looked at me, and gave a sudden laugh.

"A most noble and competent protector!" she said, in her biting way, "when you are always fortune-hunting, or else in France taking care of beauty in distress."

She glanced across the room towards Lucille in a manner strangely cold.

"Why do you encourage this man?" I asked, returning to the subject from which Isabella had so easily glided away. "He is not a gentleman. Seems to me the man is a—dark horse!"

"Well, you ought to know," said Isabella, with a promptness which made me reflect that I was no match for the veriest schoolgirl in a warfare of words.



"I did not understand," continued Isabella, looking at me under her lashes, "that you looked upon yourself as my protector. It is rather an amusing thought!"

"Oh! I do not pretend to competence," answered I; "I know you to be cleverer, and quite capable of managing your own affairs. If there was anything you wanted, no doubt you could get it better without my assistance than with it."

"No doubt," put in Isabella, with a queer curtness.

"But my father looked upon you rather in the light I mentioned. He was very fond of you, and thought much of your welfare, and—"

"You think the burden should be hereditary," she interrupted again, but she smiled in a manner that softened the acerbity of her words.

"No, Dick," she said, "you are better at your fortune-hunting."

"It is not for myself," I said too hurriedly; for Isabella had always the power to make me utter hasty words, involving me in some quarrel in which I invariably fared badly.

"Who knows?"

"You think that if the fortune fell into my hands, the temptation would be too strong for a poor man like myself?" I inquired.

"Poor by choice!" The words were hardly audible, for Isabella was busying her fingers with some books that lay on the table between us. It may have been the effect of the lamp shade, but I thought her colour heightened when I glanced at her face.

"It is hard to believe that you are honestly seeking a fortune, which, when found, will enable another man to marry Lucille," she said significantly, without looking at me. And I suppose she knew that which was in my heart.

"Some day," I retorted, "you will have to apologise for having said that!"

"Then others will need to do the same! Lucille herself does not believe in you."

"Yes," I answered, "others will have to do the same, and thank you for it."

"Lucille will not," answered Isabella, with a note of triumph in her voice, "for she had reason to distrust you in Paris."

"You seem to be on very confidential terms with Mademoiselle."

"Yes," she answered, looking at me with quiet defiance.

"Is the confidence mutual, Isabella?" asked I, rising to go; and received no answer.

When I bade good-night to Madame de Clericy, she was standing alone at the far end of the room.

"Ah! mon ami," she said, as she gave me her hand, "I think you are blinder than other men. Women are not only clothes. We have feelings of our own, which spring up without the help of any man—in despite of any, perhaps—remember that."

Which I confess was Greek to me, and sent me on my way with the feeling of a hunter who, in following one all-absorbing quarry through the forest, and hearing on all sides a suppressed rustle or hushed movement, pauses to wonder whence they come and what they mean.

"Tell me," said Alphonse, who helped me with my heavy coat, "if you have news of Miste or propose to follow him. I will accompany you."

He said it awkwardly, after the manner of one avowing an unworthy suspicion of which he is ashamed. So Alphonse Giraud was to follow me and watch my every movement, treating me like a servant unworthy of trust. I made answer, promising to advise him of any such intention; for Giraud's company was pleasant under any circumstances, and there would be some keen sport in running Miste to earth with him beside me.

Thus I came away from Isabella's house with the conviction that she and no other was my most active enemy. It was Isabella who had poisoned Giraud's mind against me. He was too simple and honest to have conceived unaided such thoughts as he now harboured. Moreover, he was, like many good-hearted people, at the mercy of every wind that blows, and, like the chameleon, took his colour from his environments.

It was to no other than Isabella that I owed Lucille's coldness, and I shrewdly suspected some ulterior motive in the action that transferred the home of the distressed ladies—for a time at least—from my house at Hopton to her own house in London. Madame de Clericy and Lucille were no longer my guests, but hers; and each day diminished their debt towards me and made them more beholden to Isabella.

"I know," Lucille had said to me one day, "that you despise us for being happier in London than at Hopton; we are conscious of your contempt."

And with a laugh she linked arms with Madame de Clericy, who hastened to say that Hopton was no doubt charming in the spring.

I had long ago discovered that Lucille ruled her mother's heart, where, indeed, no other interest entered. This visit to Isabella's town house had, it appears, been arranged by the two girls, Madame acquiescing, as she acquiesced in all that was for her daughter's happiness.

In whatsoever line I moved, Isabella seemed to stand in my path ready to frustrate my designs and impede my progress. And Isabella Gayerson had been my only playmate in childhood—the companion of my youth, and, if the matter had rested with me, might have remained the friend of my whole lifetime.

As I walked down Oxford Street (for in those days I could not afford a cab, my every shilling being needed to keep open Hopton and pay the servants there) I pondered over these things, and quite failed to elucidate them. And writing now, after many stormy years, and in quiet harbour at Hopton, I still fail to understand Isabella; nor can I tell what it is that makes a woman so uncertain in her friendships.

Then my thoughts returned to Mr. Devar, where the necessity for action presented difficulties more after my own heart.

I went to the club and there wrote a letter to Sander, who was still in the Netherlands, asking him if he knew aught of a gentleman calling himself Devar, who appeared to me to be no gentleman, who spoke French like any Frenchman, and had the air of a prosperous scoundrel.



Chapter XXI

Checkmate

"L'honneur n'existe que pour ceux qui ont de l'honneur."

Two or three days later I received a telegram from Sander, couched in the abrupt language affected by that keen-witted individual:

"Ask John Turner if he knows Devar."

The great banker's affairs were at this time of such moment that it seemed inconsiderate to trouble him with my difficulties. Also I was beginning to learn a lesson which has since been more fully impressed on my mind—namely, that there is only one person whose interest in one's affairs is continuous and sincere—namely, one's self. John Turner was a kind friend, and one who, I believe, bestowed a great affection upon a very unworthy object; but at such a time, when France seemed to be crumbling away in the sight of men, it was surely asking too much that I should expect him to turn his thoughts to me. I called, however, at the hotel where he had established himself, and there learnt from his valet that my friend was in the habit of quitting his temporary abode early in the day, not to return until evening.

"Where does he lunch?" I asked.

"Sometimes at one place, sometimes at another—wherever they have a good chef, sir," the man replied.

I bethought me of my own club and its renown. Come peace or war, I knew that John Turner never missed his meals. I left a note asking him to take luncheon with me at the club on the following day, to discuss matters of importance and meet a mutual acquaintance. I invited him fifteen minutes later than the hour named to Mr. Devar, and in the evening received his acceptance. As I was walking down St. James Street the next morning I met Alphonse Giraud.

"Will you lunch with me at the club," I said, "to-day, at one. I want to give you every facility to carry out your scheme to keep an eye on me."

Poor Alphonse blushed and hung his head.

"John Turner will be there," I said, with a laugh, "and perhaps we may hear something that will interest you—at all events, he will talk of money, since you are so absorbed in it."

So my luncheon party formed itself into a rather queer partie carree; for I knew John Turner's contempt for Alphonse, and hoped that he might cherish a yet stronger feeling against Devar.

At the hour appointed that gentleman arrived, and was pleased to be very gracious and patronising. His manner towards me was that of a man of the world who is kindly disposed towards a country bumpkin. I received him in the smaller smoking-room, where we were alone, and were still sitting there when Alphonse came. It was quite evident that the little Frenchman appreciated the great English club.

"Now, in Paris," he said, "we copy all this. But it is not the same thing. We have our clubs, but they are quite different—they are but cafes—and why?"

He looked at us in the deepest distress.

"Because," I suggested, "you are by nature too sociable. Frenchman cannot meet without being polite to each other, so the independence of a club is lost. Englishmen can share a cabin, and still be distant."

"The furniture is the same," said Giraud, looking round with a reflective eye, "but there is a different feeling in the air. It is different from the Paris clubs. Do you know Paris, Monsieur Devar?" Devar paused.

"Of course, I have been there," he replied, looking at the carpet. "What Englishman has not?"



And he was still saying pleasant things of the capital, when the button-boy brought me John Turner's card. I told him to bring the gentleman upstairs, and remember still the odd feeling in the throat with which I heard Turner's step.

The door was thrown open. The boy announced Mr. John Turner, and for a brief moment Devar's eye meeting mine told me that I had another enemy in the world. The man's face was mottled, and he sat quite still. I rose and shook hands with John Turner, who had not yet recovered his breath. Alphonse—ever polite and affable—did the same. Then I turned and said:

"Let me introduce to you Mr. Devar—Mr. John Turner."

Turner's face, at no time expressive, did not change.

"Ah!" he said, slowly—"Mr. Devar of Paris."

There was a short silence, during which the two men looked at each other, and Alphonse shuffled from one foot to the other in an intense desire to keep things pleasant and friendly in circumstances dimly adverse.

"Mr. Devar," repeated Turner, "let me draw your attention to the door!"

There was nothing dramatic about my old friend. He never forgot his stoutness, and always carried it with dignity. He merely jerked his thumb towards the door by which he had entered.

Devar must have known Turner better than I did. Perhaps he knew the sterner side of a character of which I had only experienced the kindness and friendship, for he stood with a white face, and never looked at Giraud or myself. Then he shrugged his shoulders and walked slowly towards the door, his face wearing the sickly smile of the vanquished.