She was not an analytical woman; she had never thought about her own thoughts; she was as superficial as human nature can well be. That is to say, she was little more than an animal with the gift of speech, added to one or two small items of knowledge which divide men from beasts. But she knew that this was not the end. She never doubted for a moment that it was merely a beginning, that Seymour Michael was coming back into her life.

Like a child she tossed and tumbled in her bed, muttering half-consciously, "Oh, what shall I do? What shall I do?"



CHAPTER XXIII

AND THE TIME PASSES SOMEHOW

His hand will be against every man, and every man's hand against him.

For two days Mrs. Glynde had been going about the world with a bright red patch on either cheek; and it would seem that on the third day, namely, the Sunday, things came to a crisis in her disturbed mind. At morning service her fervour was something astonishing—the quaver in her voice was more noticeable in the hymns than ever, and the space devoted to silent prayer after the blessing was so abnormally long that Stark, the sexton, had to rattle the keys twice, with all due respect and for the sake of his Sunday dinner, before she rose from her knees; whereas once usually sufficed.

It was the devout practice that all the Rectory servants should go to evening service, while Mrs. Glynde, or Dora, or both, remained at home to take care of the house. On this particular evening Mrs. Glynde proposed that Dora should stay with her, and what her mother proposed Dora usually acceded to.

"Dear," said the elder lady, with a nervous little jerk of the head which was habitual or physical, "I have heard about Arthur."

They were sitting in the drawing-room, with windows open to the ground, and the fading light was insufficient to read by, although both had books.

"Yes, mother," answered the girl in rather a tired voice, quite forgetting to be cheerful. "I should like to know exactly what you heard."

"Well, Anna told me," and there was a whole world of distrust in the little phrase, "that Arthur had asked you to be his wife, and that you had refused without giving a reason."

"I gave him a reason," replied Dora; "the best one. I said that I did not love him."

There was a little pause. The two women looked out on to the quiet lawn. They seemed singularly anxious to avoid looking at each other.

"But that might come, dear; I think it would come."

"I know it would not," replied Dora quietly. There was a dreaminess in her voice, as if she were repeating something she had heard or said before.

Suddenly Mrs. Glynde rose from her chair, and going towards her daughter, she knelt on the soft carpet, still afraid to look at her face. There was something suggestive and strange in the attitude, for the elder woman was crouching at the feet of the younger.

"My darling," she whispered, "I know, I know! I have known all along. But mind, no one else knows, no one suspects! It can never come to you again in this life. Women are like that, it never comes to them twice. To some it never comes at all; think of that, dear, it never comes to them at all! Surely that is worse?"

Dora took the nervous, eager hands in her own quiet grasp and held them still. But she said nothing.

"I have prayed night and morning," the elder woman went on in the same pleading whisper, "that strength might be given you, and I think my prayers were heard. For you have been strong, and no one has known except me, and I do not matter. The strength must have come from somewhere. I like to think that I had something to do with it, however little."

Again there was a silence. Across the quiet garden, from the church that was hidden among the trees, the sound of the evening hymn came rising and falling, the harshness of the rustic voices toned down by the whispering of the leaves.

"I know," Mrs. Glynde went on, speaking perhaps out of her own experience, "that now it must seem that there is nothing left. I know that It can never come to you, but something else may—a sort of alleviation; something that is a little stronger than resignation, and many people think that it is love. It is not love; never believe that! But it is surely sent because so many women have—to go through life—without that—which makes life worth living."

"Hush, dear!" said Dora; and Mrs. Glynde paused as if to collect herself. Perhaps her daughter stopped her just in time.

"There is," she went on in a calmer voice, "a sort of satisfaction in the duties that come and have to be performed. The duties towards one's husband and the others—the others, darling—are the best. They are not the same, not the same as if—as they might have been, but sometimes it is a great alleviation. And the time passes somehow."

It is not the clever people who make all the epigrams; but sometimes those who merely live and feel, and are perhaps objects of ridicule. Mrs. Glynde was one of these. She had unwittingly made an epigram. She had summed up life in five words—the time passes somehow."

"And, dear," she went on, "it is not wise, perhaps it is not quite right, to turn one's back upon an alleviation which is offered. Arthur would be very kind to you. He is really fond of you, and perhaps the very fact of his not being clever or brilliant or anything like that might be a blessing in the future, for he would not expect so much."

"He would have to expect nothing," said Dora, speaking for the first time, "because I could give him nothing."

She spoke in rather an indifferent voice, and in the gloom her mother could not see her face. It was a singular thing that neither of them seemed to take Arthur Agar's feelings into account in the very smallest degree; and this must be accounted to them for wisdom.

Dora was, as her mother had said, very strong. She never gave way. Her delicate lips never quivered, but she took care to keep them close pressed. Only in her eyes was the pain to be seen, and perhaps that was why her mother did not dare to look.

"There is no hurry," she pleaded. "You need not decide now."

"But," answered Dora, "I have decided now, and he knows my decision."

"Perhaps after some time—some years?" suggested Mrs. Glynde.

"A great many years," put in Dora.

"If he asks you again—oh! I know it would be better, dear; better for you in every way. I do not say that you would be quite happy. But it would be a sort of happiness; there would be less unhappiness, because you would have less time to think. I do not say anything about the position and the wealth and such considerations, for they are not of much importance to a good woman."

"After a great many years," said Dora, in that calm and judicial voice which fell like ice on her mother's heart, "I will see—if he chooses to wait."

"Yes, but—" began Mrs. Glynde, but she did not go on. That which she was about to say would scarcely have been appropriate. But so far as the facts were concerned she might just as well have said it. For Dora knew as well as she did that Arthur Agar would not wait. Women are not blind to manifest facts. They know us, my brothers, better than we think. And they are not quite so romantic as we take them to be. Their love is a better thing than ours, because it is more practical and more defined. They do not seek an ideal of their own imagination; but when something approaching to it crosses their path in the flesh they know what they want, and they do not change.

Before the silence was again broken the murmur of voices told them that the church doors had been opened, and presently they discerned a female form crossing the lawn towards the open window. It was Sister Cecilia, walking with that mincing lightness of tread which seems to be the outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual superiority over the remainder of womanhood. Good women—those mistaken females who move in an atmosphere of ostentatious good works—usually walk like this. Like this they enter the humble cot with a little soup and a lot of advice. Like this they smilingly step, where angels would fear to tread, upon feelings which they are incapable of understanding.

Mrs. Glynde got quietly up and left the room. As the door closed behind her Sister Cecilia's gently persuasive voice was heard.

"Dora! Dora dear!"

"Yes," replied the girl without any enthusiasm, rising and going to the window.

"Will you walk with me a little way across the fields? It is such a lovely evening."

"Yes, if you like."

And Dora passed out of the open window.

"I am sorry," said Sister Cecilia after a few paces, "that you were not in church. We had such a bright service."

Dora, like some more of us, wondered vaguely where the adjective applied, especially on a gloomy evening without candles, but she said nothing.

"I stayed at home with mother," she explained practically. "The servants were all out." Sister Cecilia was not listening. She was gazing up at the sky, where a few stars were beginning to show themselves.

"One feels," she murmured with a sigh, "on such an evening as this, that, after all, nothing matters much."

"About the servants do you mean? They are going on better now."

"No, dear, about life. I mean that at times one feels that this cannot be the end of it all."

"Well, we ought to feel that, I suppose, being Christians."

"And some day we shall see the meaning of all our troubles," pursued Sister Cecilia. "It is so hard for us older ones, who have passed through it, to stand by helpless, only guessing at the pain and anguish of it all, whereas, perhaps, we could help if we only knew. A little more candour, a little more confidence might so easily lead to mutual help and consolation."

"Possibly," admitted Dora, without any encouragement.

"I am so sorry for poor Arthur!" whispered Sister Cecilia, apparently to the evening shades.

Dora was silent. She knew how to treat Sister Cecilia. Jem had taught her that.

"It has been such a terrible blow. His letters to his mother are quite heartbroken."

Dora reserved her opinion of grown-up men who write heartbroken letters to their mothers.

"I know all about it," Sister Cecilia went on, quite regardless of the truth, as some good people are. "Dora, dear, I know all about it."

Silence, a silence which reminded Sister Cecilia of a sense of discomfiture which had more than once been hers in conversation with Jem.

"Have you nothing to tell me, dear?" she inquired. "Nothing to say to me?"

"Nothing," replied Dora pleasantly. "Especially as you know all about it."

"Will you never change your mind?" persuasively.

"No, I am not the sort of person to change my mind."

There was a little pause, and again Sister Cecilia whispered to the evening shades.

"I cannot help hoping that some day it may be different. It is not as if there were any one else—?"

Silence again.

"I dare say," added Sister Cecilia, after waiting in vain for an answer to her implied question, "that I am wrong, but I cannot help being in favour of a little more candour, a little mutual confidence."

"I cannot help feeling," replied Dora quietly, "that we are all best employed when we mind our own business."

"Yes, dear, I know. But it is very hard to stand idly by and see young people make mistakes which can only bring them sorrow. I want to tell you to think very deeply before you elect to lead the life of a single woman. It is a life full of temptation to idleness and self-indulgence. There are many single women who, I am really afraid, are quite useless in the world. They only gossip and pry into their neighbours' affairs and make mischief. It is because they have nothing to do. I have known several women like that, and I cannot help thinking that they would have been happier if they had married. Perhaps they did not have the chance. One does not understand these things."

Sister Cecilia cast her eyes upwards toward the tree-tops to see if perchance the explanation was written there.

"Of course," she went on complacently, drawing down her bonnet-strings, "there are many useful lives of single women. Lives which the world would sadly miss should it please God to take them. Women who live, not for themselves, but for others; who go about the world helping their neighbours with advice and the fruits of their own experience; ever the first to go to the afflicted and to those who are in trouble. They do not receive their reward here, they are not always thanked. The ignorant are sometimes even rude. They have only the knowledge that they are doing good."

"That must be a satisfaction," murmured Dora fervently.

"It is, dear; it is. But—you will excuse me, Dora dear, if I say this?—I do not think you are that sort of woman."

"No," answered Dora, "I don't think I am."

"And that is why I have said this to you. Now, don't answer me, dear. Just think about it quietly. I think I have done my duty in telling you what, was on my mind. It is always best, although it is sometimes difficult, or even painful; but then, it is one's duty. Kiss me, dear! Good-night!—good-night!"

And so Sister Cecilia left Dora—mincing away into the gloom of the overhanging trees. And so she leaves these pages. Verily the good have their reward here below in a coat of self-complacency which is as impervious to the buffets of life as to the sarcasm of the worldly.



CHAPTER XXIV

A STAB IN THE DARK

Slander, meanest spawn of Hell; And women's slander is the worst.

Mrs. Agar was a person incapable of awaiting that vague result called the development of things.

Arthur had never been forced to wait for anything in his life. No longer at least than tradespeople required, and in many cases not so long, for Mrs. Agar had an annoying way of refusing to listen to reason. She never allowed that laws applying to ordinary people, served more or less faithfully by tailor or dressmaker, applied to herself or to Arthur. And tradespeople, one finds are not always of the same mind as the Medes and Persians—they square matters quietly in the bill. They had to do it very quietly indeed with Mrs. Agar, who endeavoured strenuously to get the best value for her money all through life; a remnant of Jaggery House, Clapham Common, which the placid wealth of Stagholme never obliterated.

After the luncheon, specially prepared and laid before the Rector, this second Rebecca awaited the result impatiently. But nothing came of it. Although Mrs. Agar now looked upon Dora as the latest whim of the not-to-be-denied Arthur, she could hardly consider Mr. Glynde in the light of a tradesman retailing the said commodity, and, therefore, to be bullied and harassed into making haste. She reflected with misgiving that Mr. Glynde was an exponent of the tiresome art of talking over and thinking out matters which required neither words nor thought, and saw no prospect of an immediate furtherance of her design.

With a mistaken and much practised desire of striking when the iron was hot, Mrs. Agar, like many a wiser person, began, therefore, to bang about in all directions, hitting not only the iron but the anvil, her own knuckles and the susceptibilities of any one standing in the neighbourhood. She could not leave things to Mr. Glynde, but must needs see Dora herself. She had in her mind the nucleus of a simple if scurrilous scheme which will show itself hereafter. Her opportunity presented itself a few days later.

A neighbouring family counting itself county, presumably on the strength of never being able to absent themselves from the favoured neighbourhood on account of monetary incapacity, gave its annual garden-party at this time. To this entertainment the whole countryside was in the habit of repairing—not with an idea of enjoying itself, but because everybody did it. To be bidden to this garden-party was in itself a cachet of respectability. This indeed was the only satisfaction to be gathered from the festivity. If the honour was great, the hospitality was small. If the condescension was vast, the fare provided was verging on the stingy. Here were served by half-starved domestic servants, in the smallest of tumblers, "cups" wherein were mixed liquors, such as cider, usually consumed by self-respecting persons in the undiluted condition and in mugs. Upon cucumber-cup, taken in county society, as on a dinner of herbs, one hardly expects the guest to grow convivial. Therefore at this garden-party those bidden to the feast were in the habit of wandering sadly through the shrubbery seeking whom they might avoid, and in the course of such a perambulation, with a young man conversant of himself, Dora met Mrs. Agar. Even the mistress of Stagholme was preferable to the young man from London, and besides—there were associations. So Dora drew Mrs. Agar into her promenade, and presently the young man got his conge.

At first they talked of local topics, and Mrs. Agar, who had a fine sense of hospitality, said her say about the cider-cup. Then she gave an awkward little laugh, and with an assumption of lightness which did not succeed she said:

"I hope, dear, you do not intend to keep my poor boy in suspense much longer?"

"Do you mean Arthur?" asked Dora.

"Yes, dear. I really don't see why there should be this absurd reserve between us."

"I am quite willing," replied the girl, "to hear what you have to say about it."

"Yes, but not to talk of it."

"Well, I suppose Arthur has told you all there is to tell. If there is anything more that you want to know I shall be very glad to tell you."

"Well, of course, I don't understand it at all," burst out Mrs. Agar eagerly. This was quite true; neither she nor Arthur could understand how any one could refuse such a glorious offer as he had made.

"Perhaps I can explain. Arthur asked me to marry him. I quite appreciated the honour, but I declined it."

"Yes, but why? Surely you didn't mean it?"

"I did mean it."

"Well," explained Mrs. Agar, with a little toss of the head, "I am sure I cannot see what more you want. There are many girls who would be glad to be mistress of Stagholme."

And it must be remembered that she said this knowing quite well that Jem was probably alive. There are some crimes which women commit daily in the family circle which deserve a greater punishment than that meted out to a legal criminal.

"That is precisely what I ventured to point out to Arthur," said Dora, unconsciously borrowing her father's ironical neatness of enunciation.

"But why shouldn't you take the opportunity? There are not many estates like it in England. Your position would be as good as that of a titled lady, and I am sure you could not want a better husband."

"I like Arthur as a friend, but I could never marry him, so it is useless to discuss the question."

"But why?" persisted Mrs. Agar.

"Because I do not care for him in the right way."

"But that would come," said Mrs. Agar. It was only natural that she should use an argument which is accountable for more misery on earth than mothers dream of.

"No, it would never come."

Mrs. Agar gave a cunning little laugh, and paused so as to lend additional weight to her next remark.

"That is a dangerous thing for a girl to say."

"Is it?" inquired Dora indifferently.

"Yes, because they can never be sure, unless—"

"Unless what? I am quite sure."

"Unless there is some one else," said Mrs. Agar, with an exaggerated significance suggestive of the servants' hall.

Dora did not answer at once. They walked on for a few moments in silence, passing other guests walking in couples. Then Dora replied with a succinctness acquired from her father:

"Generalities about women," she said, "are always a mistake. Indeed, all generalities are dangerous. But if you and Arthur care to apply this to me, you are at liberty to do so. Whatever generalities you apply and whatever you say will make no difference to the main question. Moreover, you will, perhaps, be acting a kinder part if you give Arthur to understand once for all that my decision is final."

"As you like, dear, as you like," muttered Mrs. Agar, apparently abandoning the argument, whereas in reality she had not yet begun it.

"How do you do, dear Mrs. Martin?" she went on in the same breath, bowing and smiling to a lady who passed them at that moment.

"Of course," she said, returning in a final way to the question after a few moments' silence, "of course I do not believe all I hear; in fact, I contradict a good deal. But I have been told that gossips talked about you a good deal last year, at the time of Jem's death. I think it only fair that you should know."

"Thank you," said Dora curtly.

"Of course, dear, I didn't believe anything about it."

"Thank you," said Dora again.

"I should have been sorry to do so."

Then Dora turned upon her suddenly.

"What do you mean, Aunt Anna?" she asked with determination.

"Oh, nothing, dear, nothing. Don't get flurried about it."

"I am not at all flurried," replied Dora quietly. "You said that you would be sorry to have to believe what gossips said of me last year at the time of Jem's death—"

"Dora," interrupted Mrs. Agar, "I never said anything against you in any way; how can you say such a thing?"

"And," continued Dora, with an unpleasant calmness of manner, "I must ask you to explain. What did the gossips say, and why should you be sorry to have to believe it?"

Mrs. Agar's reluctance was not quite genuine nor was it well enough simulated to deceive Dora.

"Well, dear," she said, "if you insist, they said that there had been something between you and Jem—long, long ago, of course, before he went out to India."

Dora shrugged her shoulders.

"They are welcome to say what they like."

Mrs. Agar was silent, awaiting a second question.

"And why should you be sorry to believe that?" inquired the girl.

"I—I hardly like to tell you," said Mrs. Agar, in a low voice.

Dora waited in silence, without appearing to heed Mrs. Agar's reluctance.

"I am afraid, dear," went on the elder lady, when she saw that there was no chance of assistance, "that we have been all sadly mistaken in Jem. He was not—all that we thought him."

"In what way?" asked Dora. She had turned quite white, and her lips were suddenly dry and parched. She held her parasol a little lower, so that Mrs. Agar could not see her face. She was sure enough of her voice. She had had practice in that.

"In what way was Jem not all that we thought him?" she repeated evenly, like a lesson learnt by heart.

Mrs. Agar stammered. She tried to blush, but she could not manage that.

"I cannot very well give you details. Perhaps, when you are older. You know, dear, in India people are not very particular. They have peculiar ideas, I mean, of morals—different from ours. And perhaps he saw no harm in it."

"In what?" inquired Dora gravely.

"Well, in the life they lead out there. It appears that there was some unfortunate attachment. I think she was married or something like that."

"Who told you this?" asked Dora, in a voice like a threat.

"A man told Arthur at Cambridge—one of poor Jem's fellow-officers. The man who brought home the diary and things."

Having once begun Mrs. Agar found herself obliged to go on. She had not time to pause and reflect that she was now staking everything upon the possibility of Jem's death subsequent to the disaster in which he was supposed to have perished.

Dora did not believe one word of this story, although she was quite without proof to the contrary. Jem's letters had not been frequent, nor had they been remarkable for minuteness of detail respecting his own life. Mrs. Agar had done her best to put a stop to this correspondence altogether, and had succeeded in bringing about a subtle reserve on both sides. She had persistently told Jem that Dora was evidently attached to Arthur, and that their marriage was only the question of a few years. Of this Jem had never found any confirmatory hint in Dora's letters, and from some mistaken sense of chivalry refrained from writing to ask her point-blank if it were true.

"And why," said Dora, "do you tell me this? In case what the gossips said might be true?"

"Ye-es, dear, perhaps it was that."

"So as to save me from cherishing any mistaken memory?"

"Yes, it may have been that."

And Mrs. Agar was surprised to see Dora turn her back upon her as if she had been something loathsome to look upon, and walk away.



CHAPTER XXV

FROM THE JAWS OF DEATH

When the heart speaks, Glory itself is an illusion.

The Mahanaddy had just turned her blunt prow out westward from the harbour of Port Said, sniffing her native north wind, with a gentle rising movement to that old Mediterranean eastward-tending swell. The lights of the most iniquitous town on earth were fading away in the mist of the desert on the left hand, and on the right the gloom of the sea merged into a grey sky.

The dinner-hour had passed, and the passengers were lolling about on the long quarter-deck, talking lazily after the manner of men and women who have little to say and much time wherein to say it.

It was quite easy to perceive that they had left a voyage of many days behind them, for the funny man had exhausted himself and the politicians were asleep. The lifeless, homeward-bound flirtations had waned long ago, and no one looked twice at any one else. They all knew each other's dresses and vices and little aggravating habits, and only three or four of them were aware that human nature runs deeper than such superficial details.

Away forward, behind the sheep-pens, an Italian gentleman in the ice industry was scraping on a yellow fiddle which looked sticky. But like many things of plain exterior this unprepossessing instrument had something in it, something that the Italian gentleman knew how to extract, and all the ship was hushed into listening. Such as had conversation left spoke in low tones, and even the stewards in the pantry ceased for a time to test the strength of the dinner-plates.

On a small clear space of deck between the door of the doctor's cabin and the saloon gangway two men were walking slowly backwards and forwards. They were both tall men, both large, and consequently both inclined to taciturnity. They had said, perhaps, as little as any two persons on board, which may have accounted for the fact that they were talking now, and still seemed to have plenty to say.

One was dark and clean-shaven, with something of the sea in his mien and gait. His nose and chin were singularly clean cut, and suggestive of an ancestral type. This was the ship's doctor, a man who probed men's hearts as well as their bodies, and wrote of what he found there. His companion was an antitype—a representative of the fair race found in England by the ancestors of the other when they came and conquered. He wore a beard, and his face was burnt to the colour of mahogany, which had a strange effect in contrast to the bluest of Saxon eyes.

The Doctor was talking.

"Then," he was saying, "who the devil are you?"

The other smiled, a gentle, triumphant smile. The smile of a man who, humbly recognising himself at a just estimation, is conscious of having outwitted another, cleverer than himself.

"You finish your pipe," he said, and he walked away with long firm strides towards the saloon stairs. The Doctor went to the rail, where, resting his arms on the solid teak, he leant, gazing thoughtfully out over the sea, which was part of his life. For he knew the great waters, and loved them with all the quiet strength of a slow-tongued man.

Before very long some one came behind and touched him on the shoulder. He turned, and in the fading light looked into the smiling face of his late companion—the same and yet quite different, for the beard was gone, and there only remained the long fair moustache.

"Yes," said Dr. Mark Ruthine, "Jem Agar. I was a fool not to know you at first."

A sort of shyness flickered for a moment in the blue eyes.

"I have been practising so hard during the last ten months to look like some one else that I hardly feel like myself," he said.

"Um-m! There was something uncanny about you when you first came on board. I used to watch you at meals, and wonder what it was. By God, Agar, I am glad!"

"Thanks," replied Jem Agar. He was looking round him rather nervously. "You don't think there is anybody on board who will know me, do you?"

"No one, barring the Captain."

"Oh," said Agar calmly, "he is all right. He can keep his mouth shut."

"There is no doubt about that," replied the Doctor.

A little pause followed, during which they both listened involuntarily to the ice-cream merchant's musical voice, which was now floating over the silent decks, raised in song.

"I should like to hear all about it some day," said the ship's surgeon at last. He knew his man, and no detail of the strange lives that passed the horizon of his daily existence was ever forgotten. Only he usually found that those who had the most to tell required a little assistance in their narration.

"It is rather a rum business," answered Jem Agar, not displeased.

At this moment the ship's bell rang four clear notes into the night.

"Ten o'clock," said the Doctor. "Come into my cabin and have a smoke; the Captain will be in soon. He would like to hear the story too."

So they passed into the cabin, and before they had been there many minutes the Captain joined them. For a moment he stood in the doorway, then he came forward with outstretched hand.

"Well," he said, "all that I can say is that you ought to be dead. But it's not my business."

He had seen too many freaks of fortune to be surprised at this.

"I thought," he continued, "that there was something familiar about the back of your head. Back of a man's head never changes. It's a funny thing."

He sat down in his usual chair, and looked with a cheery smile upon him who had risen from the death column of the Times. Then he turned to his pipe.

"You know, Agar," he said, "I was beastly sorry about that—death of yours. Cut me up wonderfully for a few minutes. That is saying a lot in these days."

Agar laughed.

"It is very kind of you to say so," he said rather awkwardly.

"And I," added Dr. Ruthine from behind the whisky and soda tray, in the deliberate voice of a man who is saying something with an effort, "felt that it was a pity. That is how it struck me—a pity."

Then, very disjointedly, and in a manner which could scarcely be set down here, Major James Agar told his singular story. There are—thank heaven!—many such stories still untold; there are, one would be inclined to hope, many such still uncommenced. As a nation we may be on the decline, but there is something to go on with in us yet.

Once when the narrator paused, Dr. Ruthine went to the side table and opened some bottles.

"Whisky?" he inquired, with curt hospitality, "or anything else your fancy may paint, down to tea."

Agar rose to pour out his own allowance, and for a moment the two men stood together. With the critical eye of a soldier, which seems to weigh flesh and blood, he looked his host for the time being up and down.

"They don't make men like you and me on tea," he said, reaching out his hand towards a tumbler.

Then the story went on. At first the ship's doctor listened to it with interest but without absorption, then suddenly something seemed to catch his attention and hold it riveted. When a pause came he leant forward, pointing an emphasising finger.

"When you spoke just now of the chief," he said, "did you mean Michael?"

"Yes."

"What! Seymour Michael?"

"Yes."

The Captain tapped his pipe against his boot and leant back with the shrug of the shoulders awaiting further developments.

"And you mean to tell me that you put yourself entirely in the hands of Seymour Michael?" pursued the Doctor.

"Yes, why not?"

Mark Ruthine shook his head with a little laugh. "I always thought, Agar, that you were a bit of a fool!"

"I have sometimes suspected it myself," admitted the soldier meekly.

"Why, man," said Ruthine, "Seymour Michael is one of the biggest rascals on God's earth. I would not trust him with fourpence round the corner."

"Nor would I," put in the Captain, "and the sum is not excessive."

Jem Agar was sipping his whisky and soda with the placidity of a giant who fears no open fight and never thinks of foul play.

"I don't see," he muttered, "what harm he can do me."

"No more do I, at the moment," replied the Doctor; "but the man is a liar and an unscrupulous cad. I have kept an eye on him for years because he interests me. He has never run a straight course since he came into the field; he has consistently sacrificed truth, honour, and his best friend to his own ambition ever since the beginning."

Jem Agar smiled at the Doctor's vehemence, although he was aware that such a display was far from being characteristic of the man.

"Of course," he admitted, "in the matter of honour and glory I expect to be swindled. But I don't care. I know the chap's reputation, and all that, but he can hardly get rid of the fact that I have done the thing and he has not."

"I was not thinking so much of that," replied the other. "Men sell their souls for honour and glory and never get paid."

He paused; then with the sure touch of one who has dabbled with pen and ink in the humanities, he laid his finger on the vulnerable spot.

"I was thinking more," he said, "of what you had trusted him to do—telling certain persons, I mean, that you were not dead. He is just as likely as not to have suppressed the information."

Jem Agar was looking very grave, with a sudden pinched appearance about the lips which was only half concealed by his moustache.

"Why should he do that?" he asked sharply.

"He would do it if it suited his purpose. He is not the man to take into consideration such things as feelings—especially the feelings of others."

"You're a bit hard on him, Ruthine," said Jem doubtfully. "Why should it suit his convenience?"

"Secrecy was essential for your purpose and his; in telling a secret one doubles the risk of its disclosure each time a new confidant is admitted. Besides, the man's nature is quite extraordinarily secretive. He has Jewish and Scotch blood in his veins, and the result is that he would rather disseminate false news than true on the off chance of benefiting thereby later on. For men of that breed each piece of accurate information, however trivial, has a marketable value, and they don't part with it unless they get their price."

There followed a silence, during which Jem Agar went back in mental retrospection to the only interview he had ever had with Seymour Michael, and the old lurking sense of distrust awoke within his heart.

"But," said the Captain, who was an optimist—he even applied that theory to human nature—"I suppose it is all right now. Everybody knows now that you are among the quick—eh?"

"No," replied Jem, "only Michael; it was arranged that I should telegraph to him."

"Of course," the Doctor hastened to say, for he had perceived a change in Agar's demeanour, "all this is the purest supposition. It is only a theory built upon a man's character. It is wonderful how consistent people are. Judge how a man would act and you will find that he has acted like it afterwards."

As if in illustration of the theory Jem Agar looked gravely determined, but uttered no threat directed towards Seymour Michael. His quiet face was a threat in itself.

"Well," he said, rising, "I am keeping you fellows from your slumbers. I am still sleeping on deck; can't get accustomed to the atmosphere below decks after six months' sleeping in the open."

He nodded and left them.

"Rum chap!" muttered the Captain, looking at his watch when the footsteps had died away over the silent decks.

"One of the queerest specimens I know," retorted Dr. Mark Ruthine, who was fingering a pen and looking longingly towards the inkstand. The Captain—a man of renowned discretion—quietly departed.

There is no more distrustful man than the simple gentleman of honour who finds himself deceived and tricked. It is as if the bottom suddenly fell out of his trust in all mankind, and there is nothing left but a mocking void. Jem Agar lay on his mattress beneath the awning, and stared hard at a bright star near the horizon. He was realising that life is, after all, a sorry thing of chance, and that all his world might be hanging at that moment on the word of an untrustworthy man.

Before morning he had determined to telegraph from Malta to Seymour Michael to meet him at Plymouth on the arrival of the Mahanaddy at that port.



CHAPTER XXVI

BALANCING ACCOUNTS

And yet God has not said a word.

One fine morning in June the Mahanaddy steamed with stately deliberation into the calm water inside Plymouth breakwater. Many writers love to dwell with pathetic insistence on incidents of a departure; but there is also pathos—perhaps deeper and truer because more subtle—in the arrival of the homeward-board ship.

Who can tell? There may have been others as anxious to look on the green slopes of Mount Edgecumbe as the man with the mahogany-coloured face who stood ever smoking—smoking—always at the forward starboard corner of the hurricane deck. His story had not leaked out, because only two men on board knew it—men with no conversational leaks whatever. He had made no other friends. But many watched him half interestedly, and perhaps a few divined the great calm impatience beneath the suppressed quiet of his manner.

"That man—Jem Agar—is dangerous," the Doctor had said to the Captain more than once, and Mark Ruthine was not often egregiously mistaken in such matters.

"Um!" replied the Captain of the Mahanaddy. "There is an uncanny calm."

They were talking about him now as the Captain—his own pilot for Plymouth and the Channel—walked slowly backwards and forwards on the bridge. It seemed quite natural for the Doctor to be sitting on the rail by the engine-room telegraph. The passengers and the men were quite accustomed to it. This friendship was a matter of history to the homeless world of men and women who travelled east and west through the Suez Canal.

"He has asked me," the Doctor was saying, "to go ashore with him at Plymouth; I don't know why. I imagine he is a little bit afraid of wringing Seymour Michael's neck."

"Just as likely as not," observed the Captain. "It would be a good thing done, but don't let Agar do it."

"May I leave the ship at Plymouth?" asked Mark Ruthine, with a quiet air of obedience which seemed to be accepted with the gravity with which it was offered.

"I don't see why you should not," was the reply. "Everybody goes ashore there except about half a dozen men, who certainly will not want your services."

"I should rather like to do it. We come from the same part of the country, and Agar seems anxious to have me. He is not a chap to say much, but I imagine there will be some sort of a denouement."

The Captain was looking through a pair of glasses ahead, towards the anchorage.

"All right," he said. "Go."

And he continued to attend to his business with that watchful care which made the Mahanaddy one of the safest boats afloat.

Presently Mark Ruthine left the bridge and went to his cabin to pack. As he descended he paused, and retracing his steps forward he went and touched Jem Agar on the arm.

"It's all right," he said. "I'll go with you."

Agar nodded. He was gazing at the green English hills and far faint valley of the Tamar with a curious gleam of excitement in his eyes.

Half an hour later they landed.

"You stick by me," said Jem Agar, when they discerned the small wiry form of Seymour Michael awaiting them on the quay. "I want you to hear everything."

This man was, as Ruthine had said, dangerous. He was too calm. There was something grand and terrifying in that white heat which burned in his eyes and drove the blood from his lips.

Seymour Michael came forward with his pleasant smile, waving his hand in greeting to Jem and to Ruthine, whom he knew.

Jem shook hands with him.

"I'm all right, thanks," he said curtly, in answer to Seymour Michael's inquiry.

"Good business—good business," exclaimed the General, who seemed somewhat unnecessarily excited.

"Old Mark Ruthine too!" he went on. "You look as fit as ever. Still turning your thousands out of the British public—eh!"

"Yes," said Ruthine, "thank you."

"Just run ashore for half an hour, I suppose?" continued Seymour Michael, looking hurriedly out towards the Mahanaddy.

"No," replied Ruthine, "I leave the ship here."

The small man glanced from the face of one to the other with something sly and uneasy in his eyes.

Jem Agar had altered since he saw him last in the little tent far up on the slopes of the Pamir. He was older and graver. There was also a wisdom in his eyes—that steadfast wise look that comes to eyes which have looked too often on death. Mark Ruthine he knew, and him he distrusted, with that quiet keenness of observation which was his.

"Now," he said eagerly to Jem, "what I thought we might do was to have a little breakfast and catch the eleven o'clock train up to town. If Ruthine will join us, I for one shall be very pleased. He won't mind our talking shop."

Mark Ruthine was attending to the luggage, which was being piled upon a cab.

"Have you not had breakfast?" asked Agar.

"Well, I have had a little, but I don't mind a second edition. That waiter chap at the hotel got me out of bed much too soon. However, it is worth getting up the night before to see you back, old chap."

"Is there not an earlier train than the eleven o'clock?" asked Agar, looking at his watch. There was a singular constraint in his manner which Seymour Michael could not understand.

"Yes, there is one at nine forty-five."

"Then let us go by that. We can get something at the station, if we want it."

"Make it a bottle of champagne to celebrate the return of the explorer, and I am your man," said Michael heartily.

"Make it anything you like," answered Agar, in a gentler voice. He was beginning to come under the influence of Seymour Michael's sweet voice, and of that fascination which nearly all educated Jews unconsciously exercise.

He turned and beckoned to Mark Ruthine, who presently joined them, after paying the boatmen.

"The nine forty-five is the train," he said to him. "We may as well walk up. The streets of Plymouth are not pleasant to drive through."

So the cab was sent on with the luggage, and the three men turned to the slope that leads up to the Hoe.

There was some sort of constraint over them, and they reached the summit of the ascent without having exchanged a word.

When they stood on the Hoe, where the old Eddystone lighthouse is now erected, Seymour Michael turned and looked out over the bay where the ships lay at anchor.

"The good old Mahanaddy," he said, "the finest ship I have ever sailed in."

Neither man answered him, but they turned also and looked, standing one on each side of him.

Then at last Jem Agar spoke, breaking a silence which had been brooding since the Mahanaddy came out of the Canal.

"I want to know," he said, "exactly how things stand with my people at home."

He continued to look out over the bay towards the Mahanaddy, but Mark Ruthine was looking at Seymour Michael.

"Yes," replied the General, "I wanted to talk to you about that. That was really my reason for proposing that we should wait till the second train."

"There cannot be much to say," said Jem Agar rather coldly.

"Well, I wanted to tell you all about it."

"About what?"

There was what the Captain had called an uncanny calm in the voice. General Michael did not answer, and Jem turned slowly towards him.

"I presume," he said, "that I am right in taking it for granted that you have carried out your share of the contract?"

"My dear fellow, it has been perfectly wonderful. The secret has been kept perfectly."

"By all concerned?"

"Eh!—yes."

Michael was glancing furtively at Mark Ruthine, as the fox glances back over his shoulder, not at the huntsman, but at the hounds.

"Did you tell them personally, or did you write?" pursued Jem Agar relentlessly.

"My dear fellow," replied Michael, pulling out his watch, "it is a long story, and we must get to the train."

"No," replied Agar, in the calm voice which raised a sort of "fearful joy" in Ruthine's soul, "we need not be getting to the train yet, and there is no reason for it to be a long story."

Seymour Michael gave an uneasy little laugh, which met with no response whatever. The two taller men exchanged a glance over his head. Up to that moment Jem Agar had hoped for the best. He had a greater faith in human nature than Mark Ruthine had managed to retain.

"Have you or have you not told those people whom you swore to me that you would tell, out there, that night?" asked Jem.

"I told your brother," answered the General with dogged indifference.

"Only?"

There was an ugly gleam in the blue eyes.

"I didn't tell him not to tell the others."

"But you suggested it to him," put in Mark Ruthine, with the knowledge of mankind that was his.

"What has it got to do with you, at any rate?" snapped Seymour Michael.

"Nothing," replied Ruthine, looking across at Agar.

"You did not tell Dora Glynde?"

General Michael shrugged his shoulders.

"Why?" asked Jem hoarsely. It was singular, that sudden hoarseness, and the Doctor, whose business such things were, made a note of it.

"I didn't dare to do it. Why, man, it was too dangerous to tell a single soul. If it had leaked out you would have been murdered up there as sure as hell. There would have been plenty of men ready to do it for half-a-crown."

"That was my business," answered Jem coolly. "You promised, you swore, that you would tell Dora Glynde, my step-mother, and my brother Arthur. And you didn't do it. Why?"

"I have given you my reasons—it was too dangerous. Besides, what does it matter? It is all over now."

"No," said Jem, "not yet."

The clock struck nine at that moment; and from the harbour came the sound of the ship's bells, high and clear, sounding the hour. The Hoe was quite deserted; these three men were alone. A silence followed the ringing of the bells, like the silence that precedes a verdict.

Then Jem Agar spoke.

"I asked Mark Buthine," he said, "to come ashore with me, because I had reason to suspect your good faith. I can't see now why you should have done this, but I suppose that people who are born liars, as Ruthine says you are, prefer lying to telling the truth. You are coming down now with Ruthine and myself to Stagholme. I shall tell the whole story as it happened, and then you will have to explain matters to the two ladies as best you can."

A sudden unreasoning terror took possession of Seymour Michael. He knew that one of the ladies was Anna Agar, the woman who hated him almost as much as he deserved. He was afraid of her; for it is one consolation to the wronged to know that the wronger goes all through his life with a dull, unquenchable fear upon his heart. But this was not sufficient, this could not account for the mighty terror which clutched his soul at that moment, and he knew it. He felt that this was something beyond that—something which could not be reasoned away. It was a physical terror, one of those emotions which seem to attack the body independently of the soul, a terror striking the Man before it reaches the Mind. His limbs trembled; it was only by an effort that he kept his teeth clenched to prevent them from chattering.

"And," said Jem Agar, "if I find that any harm has been done—if any one has suffered for this, I will give you the soundest thrashing you have ever had in your life."

Both his hearers knew now who Dora Glynde was, what she was to him. He neither added to their knowledge nor sought to mislead. He was not, as we have said, de ceux qui s'expliquent.

"Come," he added, and turning he led the way across the Hoe.

Seymour Michael followed quietly. He was cowed by the inward fear which would not be allayed, and the judicial calmness of these two men paralysed him. Once, in the train, he began explaining matters over again.

"We will hear all that at Stagholme," said Jem sternly, and Mark Ruthine merely looked at him over the top of a newspaper which he was not reading.



CHAPTER XXVII

AT BAY

To thine own self be true; And it must follow as the night the day Thou canst not then be false to any man.

Human nature is, after all, a hopeless failure. Not even the very best instinct is safe. It will probably be turned sooner or later to evil account.

The best instinct in Anna Agar was her maternal love, and upon this strong rock she finally wrecked her barque. She was one of those women who hold that, so long as the object is unselfish, the means used to obtain it cannot well be evil. She did not say this in so many words, because she was quite without principle, good or bad, and she invariably acted on impulse.

Her impulse at this time was to turn as much of heaven and earth as came under her influence to compel Dora to marry Arthur. That Arthur should be unhappy, and should be allowed to continue in that common condition, was a thought that she could not tolerate or allow. Something must be done, and it was characteristic of the woman that that something should present itself to her in the form of the handy and useful lie. In a strait we all naturally turn to that accomplishment in which we consider ourselves most proficient. The blusterer blusters; the profane man swears; the tearful woman weeps—and weeping, by the way, is no mean accomplishment if it be used at the right moment. Mrs. Agar naturally meditated on that form of diplomacy which is sometimes called lying. The truth would not serve her purpose (not that she had given it a fair trial), and therefore she would forsake the straight path for that other one which hath many turnings.

Dora absolutely refused to come to Stagholme while Arthur was there—a delicacy of feeling, which, by the way, was quite incomprehensible to Mrs. Agar. It was necessary for Arthur's happiness that he should see Dora again and try the effect of another necktie and further eloquence. Therefore, Dora must be made by subterfuge to see Arthur.

"Dear Dora," she wrote, "it will be a great grief to me if this unfortunate attachment of my poor boy's is allowed to interfere with the affection which has existed between us since your infancy. Come, dear, and see me to-morrow afternoon. I shall be quite alone, and the subject which, of course, occupies the first place in my thoughts will, if you wish it, be tabooed.

"Your affectionate old Friend,

"ANNA AGAR."

"It will be quite easy," reflected this diplomatic lady as she folded the letter—almost illegible on account of its impetuosity—"for Arthur to come back from East Burgen earlier than I expected him."

The rest she left to chance, which was very kind but not quite necessary, for chance had already taken possession of the rest, and was even at that moment making her arrangements.

Dora read the letter in the garden beneath the laburnum-tree, where she spent a large part of her life. Before reaching the end of the epistle she had determined to go. She was a young person of spirit as well as of discrimination, and in obedience to the urging of the former was quite ready to show Mrs. Agar, and Arthur too, if need be, that she was not afraid of them.

She was distinctly conscious of the increasing power of her own strength of purpose as she made this resolution, and as she walked across the park the next afternoon her feeling was one very near akin to elation. It is only the strong who mistrust their own power. Dora Glynde had always looked upon herself as a somewhat weak and easily led person; she was beginning to feel her own strength now and to rejoice in it. From the first she half-suspected a trap of some sort. Such a subterfuge was eminently characteristic of Mrs. Agar, and that lady's manner of welcoming her only increased the suspicion.

The mistress of Stagholme was positively crackling with an excitement which even her best friend could not have called suppressed. There was no suppression whatever about it.

"So good of you," she panted, "to come, Dora dear!"

And she searched madly for her pocket handkerchief.

"Not at all," replied Dora, very calmly.

"And now, dear," went on the lady of the house, "are we going to talk about it?"

The question was somewhat futile, for it was easy to see that she was not in a condition to talk of anything else.

"I think not," replied Dora. She had a way of using the word "think" when she was positive. "The question was raised the last time I saw you, and I do not think that any good resulted from it."

Mrs. Agar's face dropped. In some ways she was a child still, and a childish woman of fifty is as aggravating a creature as walks upon this earth. Dora remembered every word of the interview referred to, while Mrs. Agar had almost forgotten it. It is to the common-minded that common proverbs and sayings of the people apply. Hard words had not the power of breaking anything in Mrs. Agar's being.

"Of course," she said, "I don't wish to talk about it, if you don't. It is most painful to me."

She had dragged forward a second chair, only separated from that occupied by Dora by the tea-table.

"Arthur," she said, with a lamentable assumption of cheerfulness, "has driven over to East Burgen to get some things I wanted. He will not be back for ever so long."

She reflected that he was overdue at that moment, and that the butler had orders to send him to the library as soon as he returned.

"I was sorry to hear," said Dora, quite naturally, "that he had not passed his examination."

Mrs. Agar glanced at her cunningly; she was always looking for second meanings in the most innocent remarks, hardly guilty of an original meaning.

At this moment the door leading through a smaller library into the dining-room opened and Arthur came quietly in. He changed colour and hesitated, but only for a moment. Then he remembered that before all things a gentleman must be a gentleman. He came forward and held out his hand.

"How do you do?" he said, and for a moment he was quite dignified. "I am glad to see you here with mother. I did not know that I was going to interrupt a tete-a-tete, tea. No tea, thanks, mother; no."

"Have you brought the things I wanted? You are earlier than I expected," blurted out the lady of the house unskillfully.

"Yes, I have brought them."

"I must go and see if they are right," said Mrs. Agar, rising, and before he could stop her she passed out of the door by which he had entered.

For a moment there was an awkward silence, then Dora spoke—after the door had been reluctantly closed from without.

"I suppose," she said, "that this was done on purpose?"

"Not by me, Dora."

She merely bowed her head.

"Do you believe me?" he asked.

"Yes."

She continued to sip her tea, and he actually handed her a plate of biscuits.

"Is it still No?" he asked abruptly.

"Yes."

Perhaps her fresh youthful beauty moved him, perhaps it was merely opposition that raised his love suddenly to the dignity of a passion that made him for once forget himself, his clothes, his personal appearance, and the gentlemanly modulation of his voice.

For a moment he was almost a man. He almost touched the height of a man's ascendency over woman.

"You may say No now," he cried, "but I shall have you yet. Some day you will say Yes."

It was then for the first time that Dora realised that this man did actually love her according to his lights. But never for an instant did she admit in her own mind the possibility of succumbing to Arthur's will. It is not by words that men command women. They must first command their respect, and that is never gained by words.

Dora was conscious of a feeling of sudden, unspeakable pain. Arthur had only succeeded in convincing her that she could have submitted to a man's will, wholly and without reserve; but not to the will of Arthur Agar. He had only showed her that such a submission would in itself have been a greater happiness than she had ever tasted. But she knew at once that only one man ever had, ever could have had, the power of exacting such submission; and he commanded it, not by word of mouth (for he never seemed to ask it), but by something strong and just and good within himself, before which her whole being bowed down.

We never know how we appear in the eyes of our neighbours, friends or lovers. Arthur was at that moment in Dora's eyes a mere sham, aping something he could never attain.

He had seized her two hands in his nervous and delicate fingers, from which she easily withdrew them. The action was natural enough, strong enough. But he completely spoiled the effect by the words he spoke in his thin tenor voice.

"No, Arthur," she said. "No, Arthur; since you mention the future, I may as well tell you now that my answer will never be anything but No. At one time I thought that it might be different. I told my mother that possibly, after a great many years, I might think otherwise; but I retract that. I shall never think otherwise. And if you imagine that you can force me to do so, please lay aside that hope at once."

"Then there is some one else!" cried Arthur, with an apparent irrelevance. "I know there is some one else."

Dora seemed to be reflecting. She looked over his head, out of the window, where the fleecy summer clouds floated idly over the sky.

She turned and looked deliberately at the door by which Mrs. Agar had disappeared. It was standing ajar. Then again she reflected, weighing something in her mind.

"Yes," she replied half-dreamily at length. "I think you have a right to know—there is some one else."

"Was," corrected Arthur, with the womanly intuition which was given to him with other womanly traits.

"Was and is," replied Dora quietly. "His being dead makes no difference so far as you are concerned."

"Then it was Jem! I was sure it was Jem," said a third voice.

In the excitement of the moment Mrs. Agar forgot that when ladies and gentlemen stoop to eavesdropping they generally retire discreetly and return after a few moments, humming a tune, hymns preferred.

"I knew that you were there," said Dora, with a calmness which was not pleasant to the ear. "I saw your black dress through the crack of the door. You did not stand quite still, which was a pity, because the sunlight was on the floor behind you. I was not surprised; it was worthy of you."

"I take God to witness," cried Mrs. Agar, "that I only heard the last words as I came back into the room."

"Don't," said Dora, "that is blasphemy."

"Arthur," cried Mrs. Agar, "will you hear your mother called names?"

"We will not wrangle," said Dora, rising with something very like a smile on her face. "Yes, if you want to know, it was Jem. I have only his memory, but still I can be faithful to that. I don't care if all the world knows; that is why I told you behind the door. I am not ashamed of it. I always did care for Jem."

There was a little pause, for mother and son had nothing to answer. Dora turned to take her gloves, which she had laid on a side table, and as she did so the other door opened, the principal door leading to the hall. Moreover, it was opened without the menial pause, and they all turned in surprise, knowing that there were only servants in the house.

In the doorway stood Jem, brown-faced, lean, and anxious-looking. There was something wolf-like in his face, with the fierce blue eyes shining from beneath dark lashes, the fair moustache pushed forward by set lips.

Behind him the keen face of Seymour Michael peered nervously, restlessly from side to side. He was distinctly suggestive of a rat in a trap. And beyond him, in the gloom of the old arras-hung hall, a third man, seemingly standing guard over Seymour Michael, for he was not looking into the room but watching every movement made by the General—tall man, dark, upright, with a silent, clean-shaven face, a total stranger to them all. But his manner was not that of a stranger, he seemed to have something to do there.



CHAPTER XXVIII

THE LAST LINK

A thing hereditary in the race comes unawares.

Jem came straight into the room, and there seemed to be no one in it for him but Dora. She went to meet him with outstretched hand, and her eyes were answering the questions that she read in his.

He took her hand and he said no word, but suddenly all the misery of the last year slipped back, as it were, into a dream. She could not define her thoughts then, and they left no memory to recall afterwards. She seemed to forget that this man had been dead and was living, she only knew that her hand was within his. Jem looked round to the others present, his attitude a judgment in itself, his face, in its fierce repose, a verdict.

Mark Ruthine had gently pushed Seymour Michael into the room and was closing the door behind them. Mrs. Agar did not see the General, who was half-concealed by his junior officer. She could not take her eyes from Jem's face.

"This is fortunate," he said; and the sound of his voice was music in Dora's ears. "This is fortunate, every one seems to be here."

He paused for a moment, as if at a loss, and drew his brown hand down over his moustache. Perhaps he felt remotely that his position was strong and almost dramatic; but that, being a simple, honest Englishman, he was unable to turn it to account.

He turned towards Seymour Michael, who stood behind, uncomfortably conscious of Mark Ruthine at his heels. It was not in Jem to make an effective scene. Englishmen are so. We do not make our lives superficially picturesque by apostrophising the shade of a dead mother. Jem gave way to the natural instinct of a soldier by nature and training. A clear statement of the facts, and a short, sharp judgment.

"This man," he said, laying his hand on the General's shoulder, and bringing him forward, "has been brought here by us to explain something."

White-lipped, breathless, in a ghastly silence Anna Agar and Seymour Michael stared at each other over the dainty tea-table, across a gulf of misused years, through the tangle of two unfaithful lives.

Then Jem Agar began his story, addressing himself to Dora, then, and until the end.

"I was not with Stevenor," he said, "when his force was surprised and annihilated. I had been sent on through an enemy's country into a position which no man had the right to ask another to hold with the force allowed me. This man sent me. All his life has he been seeking glory at the risk of other men's lives. After the disaster he came to me and relieved my little force; but he proposed to me a scheme of exploration, which I have carried through. But even now I shall not get the credit; he will have that. It was a low, scurrilous thing to do; for he was my commanding officer, and I could not say No."

"I gave you the option," blurted out Michael sullenly.

Jem took no notice of the interruption, which only had the effect of making Mark Ruthine move up a few paces nearer.

"He made a great point of secrecy," continued Agar, "which at the time I thought to be for my safety. But now I see otherwise; Ruthine has pointed it out to me. If I had never come back he would have said nothing, and would thus have escaped the odium of having sent a man to certain death. I only made one condition—namely, that three persons should be informed at once of my survival, after the disaster to Stevenor's force. Those three persons were my brother Arthur, my step-mother, and Miss Glynde."

He paused for a moment, and Dora's clear, low voice took up the narrative.

"I met General Michael," she said, "in London, some months ago. I met him more than once. He knew quite well who I was, and he never told me."

Thus was the first link of the chain riveted. Seymour Michael winced. He never raised his eyes.

Mark Ruthine moved forward again. He did so with a singular rapidity, for he had seen murder flash from beneath Jem Agar's eyebrows. He was standing between them, his left hand gripping Jem's right arm with an undeniable strength. Dora, looking at them, suddenly felt the tears well to her eyes. There was something that melted her heart strangely in the sight of those two men—friends—standing side by side; and at that moment her affection went out towards Mark Ruthine, the friend of Jem, who understood Jem, who knew Jem and loved him, perhaps, a thousandth part as well as she did; an affection which was never withdrawn all through their lives.

It was Ruthine's voice that broke the silence, giving Jem time to master himself.

"It is to his credit," he said, also addressing Dora, "that for very shame he did not dare to tell you that he had sent Agar on a mission which was as unnecessary as it was dangerous. When he sent him he must have known that it was almost a sentence of death."

Then Jem spoke again.

"As soon as I got back to civilisation," he said, "I wrote to him as arranged, and I enclosed letters to—the three persons who were admitted into the secret. Those letters have, of course, never reached their destination. General Michael will be required to explain that also."

At this moment Arthur Agar gave a strange little cackling laugh, which drew the general attention towards him. He was looking at his half-brother, with a glitter in his usually soft and peaceful eyes.

"There are a good many things which he will have to explain."

"Yes," answered Jem. "That is why we have brought him here."

It fell to Arthur Agar's lot to forge the second link.

"When," he asked Jem, "did he know that you had got back to safety and civilisation?"

"Two months ago, by telegram."

The half-brothers turned with one accord towards Seymour Michael, who stood trying to conceal the quiver of his lips.

"He promised," said Arthur Agar, "to tell me at once when he received news of your safety."

It was singular that Seymour Michael should give way at that moment to a little shrinking movement of fear—back and away, not from Jem, who towered huge and powerful above him, but from the frail and delicate younger brother. Mark Ruthine, who was standing behind, saw the movement and wondered at it. For it would appear that, of all his judges, Seymour Michael feared the weakest most.

And so the second link was welded on to the first, while only Anna Agar knew the motive that had prompted Michael to suppress the news. She divined that it was spite towards herself, and for once in her life, with that intuition which only comes at supreme moments, she had the wisdom to bide her time.

Then at last Seymour Michael spoke. He did not raise his eyes, but his words were evidently addressed to Arthur.

"I acted," he said, "as I thought best. Secrecy was necessary for Agar's safety. I knew that if I told you too much you would tell your mother, and—I know your mother better than either you or Jem Agar know her. She is not fit to be trusted with the most trifling secret."

"Well, you see, you were quite wrong," burst out Mrs. Agar, with a derisive laugh. "For I knew it all along. Arthur told me at the first."

Her voice came as a shock to them all. It was harsh and common, the voice of the street-wrangler.

"Then," cried Seymour Michael, as sharp as fate, "why did you not tell Miss Glynde?"

He raised his arm, pointing one lean dark finger into her face.

"I knew," he hissed, "that the boy would tell you. I counted on it. Why did you not tell Miss Glynde? Come! Tell us why."

Mark Ruthine's face was a study. It was the face of a very keen sportsman at the corner of a "drive." In every word he saw twice as much as simple Jem Agar ever suspected.

"Well," answered Mrs. Agar, wavering, "because I thought it better not."

"No," Dora said, "you kept it from me because you wanted me to marry Arthur. And you thought that I should do so because he was master of Stagholme. You wanted to trick me into marrying Arthur before"—she hesitated—"before—"

"Before I came back," added Jem imperturbably. "That was it, that was it!" cried Seymour Michael, grasping at the straw which might serve to turn the current aside from himself.

But the attempt failed. No one took any notice of it. Jem was looking at Dora, and she was looking anywhere except at him.

It was Jem who spoke, with the decisiveness of the president of a court-martial.

"That will come afterwards," he said. "And now, perhaps," he went on, turning towards Seymour, "you will kindly explain why you broke your word to me. Explain it to these l—— [sic.] to Miss Glynde."

Seymour Michael shrugged his shoulders.

"Why, what is the good of making all this fuss about it now?" he explained. "It has all come right. I acted as I thought best. That is all the explanation I have to offer."

"Can you not do better than that?" inquired Jem, with a dangerous suavity. "You had better try."

Dora was looking at Jem now, appealingly. She knew that tone of voice, and feared it. She alone suspected the anger that was hidden behind so calm an exterior.

Seymour Michael preserved a dogged silence, glancing from side to side beneath his lowered lashes. He had not forgotten Jem's threat, but he felt the safeguard of a lady's presence.

"I can offer an explanation," put in Mark Ruthine. "This man is mentally incapable of telling the truth and of doing the straight thing. There are some people who are born liars. This man is one. It is not quite fair to judge him as one would judge others. I have known him for years, have watched him, have studied him."

All eyes turned towards Seymour Michael, who stood half-cringing, trembling with fear and hatred towards his relentless judges.

"Years ago," pursued Ruthine, "at the outset of life, he committed a wanton crime. He did a wrong to a poor innocent woman, whose only fault was to love him beyond his deserts. He was engaged to be married to her, and meeting a richer woman he had not the courage to ask to be released from his engagement. It happened that by a mistake he was gazetted 'dead' at the time of the Mutiny. He never contradicted the mistake—that was how he got out of his engagement. He played the same trick with Jem Agar's name. I recognised it."

Then the last link of the chain was forged.

"So did I," said Anna Agar. "I was the woman."

Before the words were well out of her mouth Mark Ruthine's voice was raised in an alarmed shout.

"Look out!" he cried. "Hold that man; he is mad!"

No one had been noticing Arthur Agar—no one except Seymour Michael, who had never taken his eyes from his face during Ruthine's narration.

With a groan, unlike a human sound at all, Arthur Agar had rushed forward when his mother spoke, and for a few seconds there was a wild confusion in the room, while Seymour Michael, white with dread, fled before his doom. In and out among the people and the furniture, shouting for help, he leapt and struggled. Then there came a crash. Seymour Michael had broken through the window, smashing the glass, with his arms doubled over his face.

A second later Arthur wrenched open the sash and gave chase across the lawn. In the confusion some moments elapsed before the two heavier men followed him over the smooth turf, and the ladies from the window saw Arthur Agar kneeling over Seymour Michael on the stone terrace at the end of the lawn. They heard with cruel distinctness the sharp crackling crash of the Jew's head upon the stone flags, as Arthur shook him as a terrier shakes a rat.

Instinctively they followed, and as they came up to the group where Ruthine was kneeling over Seymour Michael, while Jem dragged Arthur away, they heard the Doctor say—

"Agar, get the ladies away. This man is dead. Look sharp, man! They mustn't see this."

And Jem barred their way with one hand, while he held his half-brother with the other.



CHAPTER XXIX

SETTLED

For love in sequel works with fate.

The four walked back to the library together. Mrs. Agar looked back over her shoulder at every other footstep. She took no notice of her son. Her affection for him seemed suddenly to have been absorbed and lost in some other emotion.

Jem was half supporting, half carrying Arthur, whose eyes were like those of a dead man, while his lips were parted in a vacant, senseless way.

Already Ruthine could be heard giving his orders to the gardeners and other servants who had gathered round him in a wonderfully short space of time.

Dora passed into the library first, treading carefully over the broken glass, and Mrs. Agar followed her without appearing to notice the sound of breakage beneath her feet. No one had spoken a word since Mark Ruthine had told them that Seymour Michael was dead. There are some situations in life wherein we suddenly realise what an inadequate thing human speech is. There are some things that others know which we have never told them, and would ever be unable to tell them. There are some feelings within us for which no language can find expression.

Mrs. Agar was simply stupefied. When God does mete out punishment here on earth, He does so with an overflowing measure. This devoted mother did not even evince anxiety as to the welfare of her son, for whose sake she had made so many blunders, so many futile plots.

Jem brought Arthur into the room, and led him to an arm-chair. There was that steady masterfulness in his manner which comes to those who have looked on death in many forms and whom nothing can dismay.

He offered no unnecessary assistance or advice, did not fussily loosen Arthur's necktie, or perform any of those small inappropriate offices which some would have deemed necessary under the circumstances. He knew quite well that this was no matter of a necktie or a collar.

Mrs. Agar seated herself on a sofa opposite, and slowly swayed her body backwards and forwards. She was one of those persons who can never separate mental anguish from physical pain. They have but one way of expressing both, and possibly of feeling both. Her hands were clasped on her lap, her head on one side, her lips drawn back as if in agony. She even went so far as to breathe laboriously.

Thus they remained; Jem watching Arthur, Dora watching Jem, who seemed to ignore her presence.

It was Mrs. Agar who spoke first, angrily and bitterly.

"What is the good of standing there?" she said to Jem. "Can't you find something more useful to do than that?"

Jem looked at her, first with surprise and then with something very nearly approaching contempt.

"I am waiting," he replied, "for Ruthine. He is a doctor."

"Who wants a doctor now? What is the good of a doctor now—now that Seymour is dead? I don't know what he is doing here, at any rate, meddling."

"Arthur wants a doctor," replied Jem. "Can you not see that he is in a sort of trance? He hears and sees nothing. He is quite unconscious."

Mrs. Agar seemed only half to understand. She stared at her son, swaying backwards and forwards in imbecile misery.

"Oh dear! oh dear!" she whispered, "what have we done to deserve this?"

After a few seconds she repeated the words.

"What have we done to deserve this? What have we done ..."

Her voice died away into a whisper, and when that became inaudible her lips went on moving, still framing the same words over and over again.

In this manner they waited, with that dull senselessness to the flight of time which follows on a great shock.

They all heard the clatter of horses' feet on the gravel of the avenue, and probably they all divined that Mark Ruthine had sent for medical help.

To Dora the sound brought a sudden boundless sense of relief. Amidst this mental confusion it came as a practical common-sense proof that the tension of the last year was over. The burden of her own life was by it lifted from her shoulders; for Jem was here, and nothing could matter very much now.

Presently Ruthine came into the room. As he went towards Arthur he glanced at Dora and then at Mrs. Agar, but the young fellow was evidently his first care.

While he was kneeling by the low chair examining Arthur's eyes and face, Mrs. Agar suddenly rose and crossed the room.

"Is he dead?" she said abruptly.

"Who?" inquired Mark Ruthine, without looking round.

"Seymour Michael."

"Yes."

"Quite?"

"Yes."

"Then Arthur killed him?"

"Yes."

All this while Arthur was lying back in the chair, white and lifeless. His eyes were open, he breathed regularly, but he heard nothing that was said, nor saw anything before his eyes.

"Then," said Mrs. Agar, "that was a murder?"

She was looking out of the window, towards the stone terrace, already conscious that the scene that she had witnessed there would never be effaced from her memory while she had life.

After a little pause Mark Ruthine spoke.

"No," he answered, "it was not that. Your son was not responsible for his actions when he did it. I think I can prove that. I do not yet know what it was. It was very singular. I think it was some sort of mental aberration—temporary, I hope, and think. We will see when he recovers himself—when the circulation is restored."

While he spoke he continued to examine his patient. He spoke in his natural tone, without attempting to lower his voice, for he knew that Arthur Agar had no comprehension of things terrestrial at that time.

"It was not," he went on, "the action of a sane man. Besides, he could not have done it. In his right mind he could not have killed Seymour Michael, who was a strong man. As it is, I think that there was some sort of paralysis in Seymour Michael—a paralysis of fear. He seemed too frightened to attempt to defend himself. Besides, why should your son do it?"

"He was born hating him."

Mark Ruthine slowly turned, still upon his knees. He rose, and in his dark face there was that strange eagerness again, like the eagerness of a sportsman approaching some unknown quarry in the jungle.

"What do you mean, Mrs. Agar?" he asked.

"I mean that he was born with a hatred for that man stronger than anything that was in him. His soul was given to him full of hate for Seymour Michael. Such things are when a woman bears a child in the midst of great passion."

"Yes," said Mark Ruthine, "I know."

"The night he was born," Mrs. Agar went on, "I first saw and spoke to that man after he had come back from India—after I had learnt what he had done."

Ruthine turned round towards Jem and Dora.

"You hear that," he said to them. "This is not the story of a mother trumped up in court to save her son. It is the truth. There are some things which we do not understand even yet. Don't forget what you have heard. It will come in usefully."

He turned to Mrs. Agar again.

"Did he know the story?" he asked.

"He never heard it until you told it just now."

"Can you swear to that, Mrs. Agar?"

"Yes."

"Then," said Ruthine, "he does not know now that you are the woman whom Seymour Michael wronged. He need never know it. The paroxysm had come on before you spoke—that was why I shouted. He was mad with hate, before you opened your lips."

Mrs. Agar was now beginning to realise what was at stake. The mother's love was re-awakening. The old cunning look came into her eyes, and her quick, truthless mind was evidently on the alert. There was something animal-like in Mrs. Agar; but she was of the lower order of animal, that seeks to defend its young by cunning and not by sheer bravery.

Ruthine must have guessed at something, for he said at once:

"Remember what you have told me. You will have to repeat that exactly. Add nothing to it, take nothing from it, or you will spoil it. Tell me, has your son seen this man more than once?"

"No, only once; at Cambridge."

"All right; I think I shall be able to prove it."

As he spoke he went towards the writing-table and, sitting down, he wrote out a prescription. Dora followed him and held out her hand for the paper.

"Send for that at once, please," he said.

Then he beckoned to Jem.

"I have sent for the local doctor," he said to him. "But I should advise having some one else—Llandoller from Harley Street. This is far above our heads."

"Telegraph for him," answered Jem Agar.

While Ruthine wrote he went on speaking.

"We must get him upstairs at once," he said. "I should like to have him in bed before the doctor comes."

In answer to the bell, rung a second time, the servant came, looking white and scared.

"Show Dr. Ruthine Mr. Arthur's room," said Jem; and Ruthine took Arthur up in his arms like a child.

When they had gone there was a silence. Mrs. Agar made no attempt to follow. She sat down again on the sofa, swaying backwards and forwards. Perhaps she was dimly aware that there remained something still to be said.

Jem Agar crossed the room and stood in front of her. Dora, from the background, was pleading with her eyes for this woman. There were the makings of a very hard man in James Edward Makerstone Agar, and seven years of the grimmest soldiering of modern days had done nothing to soften him. He was strictly just; but it is not justice that women want. To all men there comes a time when they recognise the fact that all their time and all their energies are required for the taking care of one woman, and that all the rest must take care of themselves.

"You may stay," he said to his step-mother, "until Arthur is removed from this house—but no longer. I shall never pretend to forgive you, and I never want to see you again."

Mrs. Agar made no answer, nor did she look up.

"Go," said Jem, with a little jerk of his head towards the door.

Slowly she rose, and without looking at either of them she passed out of the room.

When, at last, they were left alone in the quiet library where they had played together as children, where the happiest moments of his life and the most miserable of hers had been lived through.

Dora did not seem to know quite what to do. She was standing by the writing-table, with one hand resting on it, facing him, but not looking at him. She suddenly felt unable to do that—felt at a loss, abashed, unequal to the moment.

But Jem seemed to have no hesitation. He was quite natural and very deliberate. He seemed to know quite well what to do. He closed the door behind Mrs. Agar, and then he came across the room and took Dora in his arms, as if there were no question about it. He said nothing. After all, there was nothing to be said.

THE END