"Indeed?" said Constance. "Annette, I think I'll wear my black after all—the black tulle, and my pearls."

Annette unwillingly hung up the "creation."

"You'd have looked a dream in it, my lady. Why ever won't you wear it?"

But Constance was obstinate. And very soon she stood robed in clouds of black tulle and jet, from which her delicate neck and arms, and her golden-brown head stood out with brilliant effect. Nora, still sitting on the bed, admired her hugely. "She'll look like that when she's married," she thought, by which she meant that the black had added a certain proud—even a sombre—stateliness to Connie's good looks.

"Now my pearls, Annette."

"Won't you have some flowers, my lady?"

"No. Not one. Only my pearls."

Annette brought them, from the locked dressing-case under her own bed where she jealously kept them. They were famous pearls and many of them. One string was presently wound in and out through the coils of hair that crowned the girl's delicate head; the other string coiled twice round her neck and hung loose over the black dress. They were her only ornament of any kind, but they were superb.

Connie looked at herself uneasily in the glass.

"I suppose I oughtn't to wear them," she said doubtfully.

"Why?" said Nora, staring with all her eyes. "They're lovely!"

"I suppose girls oughtn't to wear such things. I—I never have worn them, since—mamma's death."

"They belonged to her?"

"Of course. And to papa's mother. She bought them in Rome. It was said they belonged to Marie Antoinette. Papa always believed they were looted at the sack of the Tuileries in the Revolution."

Nora sat stupefied. How strange that a girl like Connie should possess such things!—and others, nothing!

"Are they worth a great deal of money?"

"Oh, yes, thousands," said Connie, still looking at herself, in mingled vanity and discomfort. "That's why I oughtn't to wear them. But I shall wear them!" She straightened her tall figure imperiously. "After all they were mamma's. I didn't give them myself."

* * * * *

Popular as the Marmion ball had been, the Magdalen ball on the following night was really the event of the week. The beauty of its cloistered quadrangle, its river walks, its President's garden, could not be rivalled elsewhere; and Magdalen men were both rich and lavish, so that the illuminations easily surpassed the more frugal efforts of other colleges. The midsummer weather still held out, and for all the young creatures, plain and pretty, in their best dancing frocks, whom their brothers and cousins and friends were entertaining, this particular ball struck the top note of the week's romance.

"Who is that girl in black!" said his partner to Douglas Falloden, as they paused to take breath after the first round of waltzing. "And—good heavens, what pearls! Oh, they must be sham. Who is she?"

Falloden looked round, while fanning his partner. But there was no need to look. From the moment she entered the room, he had been aware of every movement of the girl in black.

"I suppose you mean Lady Constance Bledlow."

The lady beside him raised her eyebrows in excited surprise.

"Then they're not sham! But how ridiculous that an unmarried girl should wear them! Yes they are—the Risborough pearls! I saw them once, before I married, on Lady Risborough, at a gorgeous party at the Palazzo Farnese. Well, I hope that girl's got a trustworthy maid!"

"I dare say Lady Constance values them most because they belonged to her mother!" said Falloden drily.

The lady sitting beside him laughed, and tapped him on the arm.

"Sentimentalist! Don't you know that girls nowadays—babes in the schoolroom—know the value of everything? Who is she staying with?"

Falloden briefly explained and tried to change the subject. But Mrs. Glendower could not be persuaded to leave it. She was one of the reigning beauties of the moment, well acquainted with the Falloden family, and accustomed since his Eton days to lay violent hands on Douglas whenever they met. She and her husband had lately agreed to live apart, and she was now pursuing amusement wherever it was to be had. A certain Magdalen athlete was at the moment her particular friend, and she had brought down a sister to keep her in countenance. She had no intention, indeed, of making scandal, and Douglas Falloden was a convenient string to her bow.

Falloden was quite aware of the situation. But it suited him to dance with Mrs. Glendower, and to dance with her a great deal. He and Constance exchanged greetings; he went through the form of asking her to dance, knowing very well that she would refuse him; and then, for the rest of the evening, when he was not dancing with Mrs. Glendower, he was standing about, "giving himself airs," as Alice repeated to her mother, and keeping a sombre watch on Constance.

"My dear—what has happened to Connie!" said Mrs. Hooper to Alice in bewilderment. Lord Meyrick had just good-naturedly taken Aunt Ellen into supper, brought her back to the ballroom, and bowed himself off, bursting with conscious virtue, and saying to himself that Constance Bledlow must now give him at least two more dances.

Mrs. Hooper had found Alice sitting solitary, and rather drooping. Nobody had offered her supper; Herbert Pryce was not at the ball; her other friends had not showed her any particular attention, and her prettiness had dribbled away, like a bright colour washed out by rain. Her mother could not bear to see her—and then to look at Connie across the room, surrounded by all those silly young men, and wearing the astonishing jewels that were the talk of the ball, and had only been revealed to Mrs. Hooper's bewildered gaze, when the girl threw off her wraps in the cloak-room.

Alice answered her mother's question with an irritable shake of the head, meant to indicate that Connie was nothing to her.

Whereupon Mrs. Hooper settled herself carefully in the chair which she meant to keep for the rest of the evening, smoothing the bright folds of the new dress over her knee. She was much pleased with the new dress; and, of course, it would be paid for some time. But she was almost forgetting it in the excitement of Connie's behaviour.

"She has never danced once with Mr. Falloden!" she whispered in Alice's ear. "It has been all Mr. Radowitz. And the talk!" She threw up her hands maliciously.

"It's the way they dance—that makes people talk!" said Alice. "As for Mr. Falloden—perhaps she's found out what a horrid creature he is."

The band struck up. It was a mazurka with a swinging tune. Radowitz opposite sprang to his feet, with a boyish gesture of delight.

"Come!" he said to Constance; and they took the floor. Supper had thinned the hall, and the dancers who stood in the doorways and along the walls involuntarily paused to watch the pair. Falloden and Mrs. Glendower had just returned from supper. They too stood among the spectators.

The dance they watched was the very embodiment of youth, and youth's delight in itself. Constance knew, besides, that Falloden was looking on, and the knowledge gave a deeper colour to her cheek, a touch of wildness to her perfect grace of limb and movement. Radowitz danced the Polish dance with a number of steps and gestures unknown to an English ballroom, as he had learnt them in his childhood from a Polish dancing-mistress; Constance, with the instinct of her foreign training, adapted herself to him, and the result was enchanting. The slim girl in black, and the handsome youth, his golden hair standing up straight, en brosse, round his open brow and laughing eyes, seemed, as dancers, made for each other. They were absorbed in the poetry of concerted movement, the rhythm of lilting sound.

"Mountebank!" said Falloden to Meyrick, contemptuously, as the couple passed.

Radowitz saw his enemy, and though he could not hear what was said, was sure that it was something insulting. He drew himself up, and as he passed on with Constance he flung a look of mingled triumph and defiance at the group of "bloods" standing together, at Falloden in particular. Falloden had not danced once with her, had not been allowed once to touch her white hand. It was he, Radowitz, who had carried her off—whom she had chosen—whom she had honoured. The boy's heart swelled with joy and pride; the artist in him, of another race than ours, realising and sharpening the situation, beyond the English measure.

And, afterwards, he danced with her again—many times. Moreover with him and an escort of his friends—for in general the young Pole with his musical gift and his romantic temperament was popular in Oxford—Constance made the round of the illuminated river-walks and the gleaming cloisters, moving like a goddess among the bevy of youths who hung upon her smiles. The intoxication of it banished thought and silenced regret.

But it was plain to all the world, no less than to Mrs. Hooper, that Falloden of Marmion, who had seemed to be in possession of her the night before, had been brusquely banished from her side; that Oxford's charming newcomer had put her supposed suitor to open contumely; and that young Radowitz reigned in his stead.

* * * * *

Radowitz walked home in a whirl of sensations and recollections that made of the Oxford streets an "insubstantial fairy place," where only Constance lived.

He entered Marmion about four o'clock in a pearly light of dawn. Impossible to go to bed or to sleep!

He would change his clothes, go out for a bathe, and walk up into the Cumnor hills.

In the quadrangle he passed a group of men in evening dress returned like himself from the ball. They were talking loudly, and reading something which was being passed from hand to hand. As he approached, there was a sudden dead silence. But in his abstraction and excitement he noticed nothing.

When he had vanished within the doorway of his staircase, Meyrick, who had had a great deal too much champagne, said fiercely—

"I vote we give that young beggar a lesson! I still owe him one for that business of a month ago."

"When he very nearly settled you, Jim," laughed a Wykehamist, a powerfully built fellow, who had just got his Blue for the Eleven, had been supping freely and was in a mood for any riotous deed.

"That was nothing," said Meyrick—"but this can't be stood!"

And he pointed to the sheet that Falloden, who was standing in the centre of the group, was at the moment reading. It was the latest number of an Oxford magazine, one of those ephemerides which are born, and flutter, and vanish with each Oxford generation. It contained a verbatim report of the attack on the Marmion "bloods" made by Radowitz at the dinner of the college debating society about a fortnight earlier. It was witty and damaging in the highest degree, and each man as he read it had vowed vengeance. Falloden had been especially mocked in it. Some pompous tricks of manner peculiar to Falloden in his insolent moods, had been worked into a pseudo-scientific examination of the qualities proper to a "blood," with the happiest effect. Falloden grew white as he read it. Perhaps on the morrow it would be in Constance Bledlow's hands. The galling memories of the evening just over were burning too in his veins. That open humiliation in the sight of Oxford had been her answer to his prayer—his appeal. Had she not given him a right to make the appeal? What girl could give two such rendezvous to a man, and not admit some right on his part to advise, to influence her? It was monstrous she should have turned upon him so!

And as for this puppy!—

A sudden gust of passion, of hot and murderous wrath, different from anything he had ever felt before, blew fiercely through the man's soul. He wanted to crush—to punish—to humiliate. For a moment he saw red. Then he heard Meyrick say excitedly: "This is our last chance! Let's cool his head for him—in Neptune."

Neptune was the Graeco-Roman fountain in the inner quad, which a former warden had presented to the college. The sea god with his trident, surrounded by a group of rather dilapidated nymphs, presided over a broad basin, filled with running water and a multitude of goldfish.

There was a shout of laughing assent, and a rush across the grass to Radowitz's staircase. College was nearly empty; the Senior Tutor had gone to Switzerland that morning; and those few inmates who still remained, tired out with the ball of the night before, were fast asleep. The night porter, having let everybody in and closed the gate, was dozing in his lodge.

There was a short silence in the quadrangle. Then the rioters who had been for a few minutes swallowed up in a distant staircase on the western side of the quadrangle reemerged, with muffled shouts and laughter, bringing their prey with them—a pale, excited figure.

"Let me alone, you cowardly bullies!—ten of you against one!"

But they hurried him along, Radowitz fighting all the way, and too proud to call for help. The intention of his captors—of all save one—was mere rowdy mischief. To duck the offender and his immaculate white flannels in Neptune, and then scatter to their beds before any one could recognise or report them, was all they meant to do.

But when they reached the fountain, Radowitz, whose passion gave him considerable physical strength, disengaged himself, by a sudden effort, from his two keepers, and leaping into the basin of the fountain, he wrenched a rickety leaden shell from the hand of one of Neptune's attendant nymphs and began to fling the water in the faces of his tormentors. Falloden was quickly drenched, and Meyrick and others momentarily blinded by the sudden deluge in their eyes. Robertson, the Winchester Blue, was heavily struck. In a wild rage he jumped into the fountain and closed with Radowitz. The Pole had no chance against him, and after a short struggle, Radowitz fell heavily, catching in his fall at a piece of rusty piping, part of some disused machinery of the fountain.

There was a cry. In a moment it sobered the excited group of men. Falloden, who had acted as leader throughout, called peremptorily to Robertson. "Is he hurt? Let him up at once."

Robertson in dismay stooped over the prostrate form of Radowitz, and carried him to the edge of the fountain. There it was seen that the lad had fainted, and that blood was streaming from his right hand.

"He's cut it on that beastly piping—it's all jagged," gasped Robertson. "I say, can anybody stop the bleeding?"

One Desmond, an Etonian who had seen one or two football accidents, knelt down, deadly pale, by Radowitz and rendered a rough first-aid. By a tourniquet of handkerchiefs he succeeded in checking the bleeding. But it was evident that an artery was injured.

"Go for a doctor," said Falloden to Meyrick, pointing to the lodge. "Tell the porter that somebody's been hurt in a lark. You'll probably find a cab outside. We'll carry him up."

In a few minutes they had laid the blood-stained and unconscious Radowitz on his bed, and were trying in hideous anxiety to bring him round. The moment when he first opened his eyes was one of unspeakable relief to the men who in every phase of terror and remorse were gathered round him. But the eyelids soon fell again.

"You'd better go, you fellows," said Falloden, looking round him. "Robertson and I and Desmond will see the doctor."

The others stole away. And the three men kept their vigil. The broad-shouldered Wykehamist, utterly unnerved, sat by the bed trembling from head to foot. Desmond kept watch over the tourniquet.

Falloden stood a little apart, in a dead silence, his eyes wandering occasionally from the figure on the bed to the open window, through which could be seen the summer sky, and a mounting sun, just touching the college roofs. The college clock struck half past four. Not two hours since Radowitz and Constance Bledlow had held the eyes of Oxford in the Magdalen ballroom.



CHAPTER X

Radowitz woke up the following morning, after the effects of the dose of morphia administered by the surgeon who had dressed his hand had worn off, in a state of complete bewilderment. What had happened to him? Why was he lying in this strange, stiff position, propped up with pillows?

He moved a little. A sharp pain wrung a groan from him. Then he perceived his bandaged hand and arm; and the occurrences of the preceding night began to rush back upon him. He had soon reconstructed them all; up to the moment of his jumping into the fountain. After that he remembered nothing.

He had hurt himself somehow in the row, that was clear. A sudden terror ran through him. "It's my right hand!—Good God! if I lost my hand!—if I couldn't play again!" He opened his eyes, trembling, and saw his little college room; his clothes hanging on the door, the photographs of his father and mother, of Chopin and Wagner on the chest of drawers. The familiar sight reassured him at once, and his natural buoyancy of spirit began to assert itself.

"I suppose they got a doctor. I seem to remember somebody coming. Bah, it'll be all right directly. I heal like a baby. I wonder who else was hurt. Who's that? Come in!"

The door opened, and his scout looked in cautiously. "Thought I heard you moving, sir. May the doctor come in?"

The young surgeon appeared who had been violently rung up by Meyrick some five hours earlier. He had a trim, confident air, and pleasant eyes. His name was Fanning.

"Well, how are you? Had some sleep? You gave yourself an uncommonly nasty wound. I had to set a small bone, and put in two or three stitches. But I don't think you knew much about it."

"I don't now," said Radowitz vaguely. "How did I do it?"

"There seems to have been a 'rag' and you struck your hand against some broken tubing. But nobody was able to give a clear account." The doctor eyed him discreetly, having no mind to be more mixed up in the affair than was necessary.

"Who sent for you?"

"Lord Meyrick rang me up, and when I got here I found Mr. Falloden and Mr. Robertson. They had done what they could."

The colour rushed back into the boy's pale cheeks.

"I remember now," he said fiercely. "Damn them!"

The surgeon made no reply. He looked carefully at the bandage, asked if he could ease it at all—took pulse and temperature, and sat some time in silence, apparently thinking, by the bed. Then rising, he said:

"I shan't disturb the dressing unless it pains you. If it does, your scout can send a message to the surgery. You must stay in bed—you've got a little fever. Take light food—I'll tell your scout all about that—and I'll come in again to-night."

He departed. The scout brought warm water and a clean sheet. Radowitz was soon washed and straightened as well as masculine fingers could achieve it.

"You seem to have lost a lot of blood, sir, last night!" said the man involuntarily, as he became aware in some dismay of the white flannels and other clothes that Radowitz had been wearing when the invaders broke into his room, which were now lying in a corner, where the doctor had thrown them.

"That's why I feel so limp!" said Radowitz, shutting his eyes again. "Please get me some tea, and send a message round to St. Cyprian's—to Mr. Sorell—that I want to see him as soon as he can come."

The door closed on the scout.

Left alone Radowitz plunged into a tumult of feverish thought. He seemed to be standing again, just freshly dressed, beside his bed—to hear the noise on the stairs, the rush into his sitting-room. Falloden, of course, was the leader—insolent brute! The lad, quivering once more with rage and humiliation, seemed to feel again Falloden's iron grip upon his shoulders—to remember the indignity of his forced descent into the quad—the laughter of his captors. Then he recollected throwing the water—and Robertson's spring upon him—

If she had seen it! Whereupon, a new set of images displaced the first. He was in the ballroom again, he had her hand in his; her charming face with its small features and its beautiful eyes was turned to him. How they danced, and how deliriously the music ran! And there was Falloden in the doorway, with his dark face,—looking on. The rag on his part, had been mere revenge; not for the speech, but for the ball.

Was she in love with him? Impossible! How could such a hard, proud being attract her? If she did marry him he would crush and wither her. Yet of course girls did do—every day—such idiotic things. And he thought uncomfortably of a look he had surprised in her face, as he and she were sitting in the New Quad under the trees and Falloden passed with a handsome dark lady—one of the London visitors. It had been something involuntary—a flash from the girl's inmost self. It had chilled and checked him as he sat by her. Yet the next dance had driven all recollection of it away.

"She can't ever care for me," he thought despairingly. "I know that. I'm not her equal. I should be a fool to dream of it. But if she's going to throw herself away—to break her heart for that fellow—it's—it's devilish! Why aren't we in Paris—or Warsaw—where I could call him out?"

He tossed about in pain and fever, irritably deciding that his bandage hurt him, and he must recall the doctor, when he heard Sorell's voice at the door. It quieted him at once.

"Come in!"

Sorell came in with a scared face.

"My dear boy—what's the matter?"

"Oh, there was a bit of a row last night. We were larking round the fountain, trying to push each other in, and I cut my hand on one of those rotten old pipes. Beastly luck! But Fanning's done everything. I shall be all right directly. There's a little bone broken."

"A bone broken!—your hand!" ejaculated Sorell, who sat down and looked at him in dismay.

"Yes—I wish it had been my foot! But it doesn't matter. That kind of thing gets well quickly, doesn't it?" He eyed his visitor anxiously. "You see I never was really ill in my life."

"Well, we can't run any risks about it," said Sorell decidedly. "I shall go and see Fanning. If there's any doubt about it, I shall carry you up to London, and get one of the crack surgeons to come and look at it. What was the row about?"

Radowitz's eyes contracted so that Sorell could make nothing out of them.

"I really can't remember," said the lad's weary voice. "There's been a lot of rowing lately."

"Who made the row?"

"What's the good of asking questions?" The speaker turned irritably away. "I've had such a lot of beastly dreams all night, I can't tell what happened, and what didn't happen. It was just a jolly row, that's all I know."

Sorell perceived that for some reason Radowitz was not going to tell him the story. But he was confident that Douglas Falloden had been at the bottom of it, and he felt a fierce indignation. He had however to keep it to himself, as it was clear that questions excited and annoyed the patient.

He sat by the boy a little, observing him. Then he suggested that Bateson the scout and he should push the bed into the sitting-room, for greater air and space. Radowitz hesitated, and then consented. Sorell went out to speak to Bateson.

"All right, sir," said the scout. "I've just about got the room straight; but I had to get another man to help me. They must have gone on something fearful. There wasn't an article in the room that wasn't knocked about."

"Who did it?" said Sorell shortly.

The scout looked embarrassed.

"Well, of course, sir, I don't know for certain. I wasn't there to see. But I do hear Mr. Falloden, and Lord Meyrick, and Mr. Robertson were in it—and there were some other gentlemen besides. There's been a deal of ragging in this college lately, sir. I do think, sir, as the fellows should stop it."

Sorell agreed, and went off to the surgery, thinking furiously. Suppose the boy's hand—and his fine talent—had been permanently injured by that arrogant bully, Falloden, and his set! And Constance Bledlow had been entangling herself with him—in spite of what anybody could say! He thought with disgust of the scenes of the Marmion ball, of the reckless way in which Constance had encouraged Falloden's pursuit of her, of the talk of Oxford. His work with the Greats' papers had kept him away from the Magdalen ball, and he had heard nothing of it. No doubt that foolish child had behaved in the same way there. He was thankful he had not been there to see. But he vowed to himself that he would find out the facts of the attack on Radowitz, and that she should know them.

Yet the whole thing was very surprising. He had seen on various occasions that Falloden was jealous of Connie's liking for Radowitz, of the boy's homage, and of Connie's admiration for his musical gift. But after the Marmion night, and the triumph she had so unwisely given the fellow—to behave in this abominable way! There couldn't be a spark of decent feeling in his composition.

* * * * *

Radowitz lay still—thinking always of Falloden, and Lady Constance.

Another knock at his door—very timid and hesitating. Radowitz said "Come in."

The door opened partially, and a curly head was thrust in. Another head appeared behind it.

"May we come in?" said a muffled voice. "It's Meyrick—and Robertson."

"I don't care if you do," said Radowitz coldly. "What do you want?"

The two men came in, stepping softly. One was fair and broad-shouldered. The other exceedingly dark and broad-shouldered. Each was a splendid specimen of the university athlete. And two more sheepish and hang-dog individuals it would have been difficult to find.

"We've come to apologise," said Meyrick, standing by the bed, his hands in his pockets, looking down on Radowitz. "We didn't mean to hurt you of course, and we're awfully sorry—aren't we, Robertson?"

Robertson, sheltering behind Meyrick, murmured a deep-voiced assent.

"If we hadn't been beastly drunk we should never have done it," said Meyrick; "but that's no excuse. How are you? What does Fanning say?"

They both looked so exceedingly miserable that Radowitz, surveying them with mollified astonishment, suddenly went into a fit of hysterical laughter. The others watched him in alarm.

"Do sit down, you fellows!—and don't bother!" said Radowitz, as soon as he could speak. "I gave it to you both as hard as I could in my speech. And you hit back. We're quits. Shake hands."

And he held out his left hand, which each of them gingerly shook. Then they both sat down, extremely embarrassed, and not knowing what to say or do next, except that Meyrick again enquired as to Fanning's opinion.

"Let's have some swell down," said Meyrick urgently. "We could get him in a jiffy."

But Radowitz impatiently dismissed the subject. Sorell, he said, had gone to see Fanning, and it would be all right. At the same time it was evident through the disjointed conversation which followed that he was suffering great pain. He was alternately flushed and deadly pale, and could not occasionally restrain a groan which scared his two companions. At last they got up to go, to the relief of all three.

Meyrick said awkwardly:

"Falloden's awfully sorry too. He would have come with us—but he thought perhaps you wouldn't want him."

"No, I don't want him!" said Radowitz vehemently. "That's another business altogether."

Meyrick hummed and hawed, fidgeting from one foot to the other.

"It was I started the beastly thing," he said at last. "It wasn't Falloden at all."

"He could have stopped it," said Radowitz shortly. "And you can't deny he led it. There's a long score between him and me. Well, never mind, I shan't say anything. And nobody else need. Good-bye."

A slight ghostly smile appeared in the lad's charming eyes as he raised them to the pair, again holding out his free hand. They went away feeling, as Meyrick put it, "pretty beastly."

* * * * *

By the afternoon various things had happened. Falloden, who had not got to bed till six, woke towards noon from a heavy sleep in his Beaumont Street "diggings," and recollecting in a flash all that had happened, sprang up and opened his sitting-room door. Meyrick was sitting on the sofa, fidgeting with a newspaper.

"Well, how is he?"

Meyrick reported that the latest news from Marmion was that Sorell and Fanning between them had decided to take Radowitz up to town that afternoon—for the opinion of Sir Horley Wood, the great surgeon.

"Have you seen Sorell?"

"Yes. But he would hardly speak to me. He said we'd perhaps spoilt his life."

"Whose?"

"Radowitz's."

Falloden's expression stiffened.

"That's nonsense. If he's properly treated, he'll get all right. Besides it was a pure accident. How could any of us know those broken pipes were there?"

"Well, I shall be glad when we get Wood's opinion," said Meyrick gloomily. "It does seem hard lines on a fellow who plays that it should have been his hand. But of course—as you say, Duggy—it'll probably be all right. By the way, Sorell told me Radowitz had absolutely refused to let anybody in college know—any of the dons—and had forbidden Sorell himself to say a word."

"Well of course that's more damaging to us than any other line of action," said Falloden drily. "I don't know that I shall accept it—for myself. The facts had better be known."

"Well, you'd better think of the rest of us," said Meyrick. "It would hit Robertson uncommonly hard if he were sent down. If Radowitz is badly hurt, and the story gets out, they won't play him for the Eleven—"

"If he's badly hurt, it will get out," said Falloden coolly.

"Well, let it alone, anyway, till we see."

Falloden nodded—"Barring a private friend or two. Well, I must dress."

When he opened the door again, Meyrick was gone.

In an unbearable fit of restlessness, Falloden went out, passed Marmion, looked into the quad which was absolutely silent and deserted, and found his way aimlessly to the Parks.

He must see Constance Bledlow, somehow, before the story reached her from other sources, and before everybody separated for the vac. A large Nuneham party had been arranged by the Mansons for the following day in honour of the ex-Ambassador and his wife, who were prolonging their stay in Christ Church so as to enjoy the river and an Oxford without crowds or functions. Falloden was invited, and he knew that Constance had been asked. In his bitterness of the day before, after their quarrel in the wood, he had said to himself that he would certainly go down before the party. Now he thought he would stay.

Suddenly, as he was walking back along the Cherwell edge of the park, under a grey sky with threatening clouds, he became aware of a lady in front of him. Annoying or remorseful thought became in a moment excitement. It was impossible to mistake the springing step and tall slenderness of Constance Bledlow.

He rapidly weighed the pros and cons of overtaking her. It was most unlikely that she had yet heard of the accident. And yet she might have seen Sorell.

He made up his mind and quickened his pace. She heard the steps behind her and involuntarily looked round. He saw, with a passionate delight, that she could not immediately hide the agitation with which she recognised him.

"Whither away?" he said as he took off his hat. "Were you up as late as I? And are balls worth their headaches?"

She was clearly surprised by the ease and gaiety of his manner, and at the same time—he thought—inclined to resent his interruption of her walk, before she had made up her mind in what mood, or with what aspect to meet him next. But he gave her no time for further pondering. He walked beside her, while she coldly explained that she had taken Nora to meet some girl friends at the Cherwell boat-house, and was now hurrying back herself to pay some calls with her aunt in the afternoon.

"What a week you have had!" he said when she paused. "Is there anything left of you? I saw that you stayed very late last night."

She admitted it.

"As for me, of course, I thought the ball—intolerable. But that of course you know—you must know!" he added with a sudden vehement emphasis. "May I not even say that you intended it? You meant to scourge me, and you succeeded."

Constance laughed, though he perceived that her lip trembled a little.

"The scourging had, I think—compensations."

"You mean I took refuge with Mrs. Glendower? Yes, she was kind—and useful. She is an old friend—more of the family than mine. She is coming to stay at Flood in August."

"Indeed?" The tone was as cool as his own. There was a moment's pause. Then Falloden turned another face upon her.

"Lady Constance!—I have something rather serious and painful to tell you—and I am glad of this opportunity to tell you before you hear it from any one else. There was a row in college last night, or rather this morning, after the ball, and Otto Radowitz was hurt."

The colour rushed into Connie's face. She stopped. All around them the park stretched, grey and empty. There was no one in sight on the path where they had met.

"But not seriously," she breathed.

"His hand was hurt in the scuffle!"

Constance gave a cry.

"His hand!"

"Yes. I knew you'd feel that. It was a horrible shame—and a pure accident. But you'd better know the whole truth. It was a rag, and I was in it. But, of course, nobody had the smallest intention of hurting Radowitz."

"No—only of persecuting and humiliating him!" cried Constance, her eyes filling with tears. "His hand!—oh, how horrible! If it were really injured, if it hindered his music—if it stopped it—it would just kill him!"

"Very likely it is only a simple injury which will quickly heal," said Falloden coldly. "Sorell has taken him up to town this afternoon to see the best man he can get. We shall know to-morrow, but there is really no reason to expect anything—dreadful."

"How did it happen?"

"We tried to duck him in Neptune—the college fountain. There was a tussle, and his hand was cut by a bit of broken piping. You perhaps don't know that he made a speech last week, attacking several of us in a very offensive way. The men in college got hold of it last night. A man who does that kind of thing runs risks."

"He was only defending himself!" cried Constance. "He has been ragged, and bullied, and ill-treated—again and again—just because he is a foreigner and unlike the rest of you. And you have been the worst of any—you know you have! And I have begged you to let him alone! And if—if you had really been my friend—you would have done it—only to please me!"

"I happened to be more than your friend!"—said Falloden passionately. "Now let me speak out! You danced with Radowitz last night, dance after dance—so that it was the excitement, the event of the ball—and you did it deliberately to show me that I was nothing to you—nothing!—and he, at any rate, was something. Well!—I began to see red. You forget—that"—he spoke with difficulty—"my temperament is not exactly saintly. You have had warning, I think, of that often. When I got back to college, I found a group of men in the quad reading the skit in The New Oxonian. Suddenly Radowitz came in upon us. I confess I lost my head. Oh, yes, I could have stopped it easily. On the contrary, I led it. But I must ask you—because I have so much at stake!—was I alone to blame?—Was there not some excuse?—had you no part in it?"

He stood over her, a splendid accusing figure, and the excited girl beside him was bewildered by the adroitness with which he had carried the war into her own country.

"How mean!—how ungenerous!" Her agitation would hardly let her speak coherently. "When we were riding, you ordered me—yes, it was practically that!—you warned me, in a manner that nobody—nobody —has any right to use with me—unless he were my fiance or my husband—that I was not to dance with Otto Radowitz—I was not to see so much of Mr. Sorell. So just to show you that I was really not at your beck and call—that you could not do exactly what you liked with me—I danced with Mr. Radowitz last night, and I refused to dance with you. Oh, yes, I know I was foolish—I daresay I was in a temper too—but how you can make that any excuse for your attack on that poor boy—how you can make me responsible, if—"

Her voice failed her. But Falloden saw that he had won some advantage, and he pushed on.

"I only want to point out that a man is not exactly a stock or a stone to be played with as you played with me last night. Those things are dangerous! Can you deny—that you have given me some reason to hope—since we met again—to hope confidently, that you might change your mind? Would you have let me arrange those rides for you—unknown to your friends—would you have met me in the woods, those heavenly times—would you have danced with me as you did—would you have let me pay you in public every sort of attention that a man can pay to a girl, when he wants to marry her, the night of the Marmion ball—if you had not felt something for me—if you had not meant to give me a little hope—to keep the thing at least uncertain? No!—if this business does turn out badly, I shall have remorse enough, God knows—but you can't escape! If you punish me for it, if I alone am to pay the penalty, it will be not only Radowitz that has a grievance—not only Radowitz whose life will have been spoilt!"

She turned to him—hypnotised, subdued, by the note of fierce accusation—by that self-pity of the egotist—which looked out upon her from the young man's pale face and tense bearing.

"No"—she said trembling—"no—it is quite true—I have treated you badly. I have behaved wilfully and foolishly. But that was no reason—no excuse—"

"What's the good of talking of 'reason'—or excuse'?" Falloden interrupted violently. "Do you understand that I am in love with you—and what that means to a man? I tore myself away from Oxford, because I knew that if I stayed another day within reach of you—after that first ride—I should lose my class—disappoint my father—and injure my career. I could think of nothing but you—dream of nothing but you. And I said to myself that my success—my career—might after all be your affair as well as mine. And so I went. And I'm not going to boast of what it cost me to go, knowing that other people would be seeing you—influencing you—perhaps setting you against me—all the time I was away. But then when I came back, I couldn't understand you. You avoided me. It was nothing but check after check—which you seemed to enjoy inflicting. At last, on the night of our ball I seemed to see clear. On that night, I did think—yes, I did think, that I was something to you!—that you could not have been so sweet—so adorable—in the sight of the whole world—unless you had meant that—in time it would all come right. And so next day, on our ride, I took the tone I did. I was a fool; of course. All men are, when they strike too soon. But if you had had any real feeling in your heart for me—if you had cared one ten-thousandth part for me, as I care for you, you couldn't have treated me as you did last night—so outrageously—so cruelly!"

The strong man beside her was now trembling from head to foot. Constance, hard-pressed, conscience-struck, utterly miserable, did not know what to reply. Falloden went on impetuously:

"And now at least don't decide against me without thinking—without considering what I have been saying. Of course the whole thing may blow over. Radowitz may be all right in a fortnight. But if he is not—if between us, we've done something sad and terrible, let's stand together, for God's sake!—let's help each other. Neither of us meant it. Don't let's make everything worse by separating and stabbing each other. I shall hear what has happened by to-night. Let me come and bring you the news. If there's no great harm done—why—you shall tell me what kind of letter to write to Radowitz. I'm in your hands. But if it's bad—if there's blood-poisoning and Radowitz loses his hand—that they say is the worst that can happen—I of course shall feel like hanging myself—everybody will, who was in the row. But next to him, to Radowitz himself, whom should you pity more than—the man—who—was three parts to blame—for injuring him?"

His hoarse voice dropped. They came simultaneously, involuntarily to a standstill. Constance was shaken by alternate waves of feeling. Half of what he said seemed to her insolent sophistry; but there was something else which touched—which paralysed her. For the first time she knew that this had been no mere game she had been playing with Douglas Falloden. Just as Falloden in his careless selfishness might prove to have broken Otto Radowitz's life, as a passionate child breaks a toy, so she had it in her power to break Falloden.

They had wandered down again, without knowing it, to the banks of the river, and were standing in the shelter of a group of young chestnuts, looking towards the hills, over which hung great thunder-clouds.

At last Constance held out her hand.

"Please go now," she said pleadingly. "Send me word to-night. But don't come. Let's hope. I—I can't say any more."

And indeed he saw that she could bear no more. He hesitated—yielded—took her unresisting hand, which he pressed violently to his lips—and was gone.

* * * * *

Hour after hour passed. Falloden had employed Meyrick as an intermediary with a great friend of Sorell's, one Benham, another fellow of St. Cyprian's, who had—so Meyrick reported—helped Sorell to get Radowitz to the station in time for the two o'clock train to London. The plan, according to Benham, was to go straight to Sir Horley Wood, who had been telegraphed to in the morning, and had made an appointment for 4.30. Benham was to hear the result of the great surgeon's examination as soon as possible, and hoped to let Meyrick have it somewhere between seven and eight.

Four or five other men, who had been concerned in the row, including Desmond and Robertson, hung about college, miserably waiting. Falloden and Meyrick ordered horses and went off into the country, hardly speaking to each other during the whole of the ride. They returned to their Beaumont Street lodgings about seven, and after a sombre dinner Meyrick went out to go and enquire at St. Cyprian's.

He had scarcely gone when the last Oxford post arrived, and a letter was brought up for Falloden. It was addressed in his father's hand-writing. He opened it mechanically; and in his preoccupation, he read it several times before he grasped his meaning.

* * * * *

"My dear Son,"—wrote Sir Arthur Falloden—"We expected you home early this week, for you do not seem to have told us that you were staying up for Commem. In any case, please come home at once. There are some very grave matters about which I must consult with you, and which will I fear greatly affect your future. You will find me in great trouble, and far from well. Your poor mother means very kindly, but she can't advise me. I have long dreaded the explanations which can not now be avoided. The family situation has been going from bad to worse,—and I have said nothing—hoping always to find some way out. But now it is precisely my fear that—if we can't discover it—you will find yourself, without preparation, ruined on the threshold of life, which drives me to tell you everything. Your head is a cleverer one than mine. You may think of something. It is of course the coal-mining that has come to grief, and dragged in all the rest. I have been breaking down with anxiety. And you, my poor boy!—I remember you said when we met last, that you hoped to marry soon—perhaps this year—and go into Parliament. I am afraid all that is at an end, unless you can find a girl with money, which of course you ought to have no difficulty in doing, with your advantages.

"But it is no good writing. Come to-morrow, and wire your train.

"Your loving father, ARTHUR FALLODEN."

"'Ruined on the threshold of life'—what does he mean?"—thought Falloden impatiently. "Father always likes booky phrases like that. I suppose he's been dropping a thousand or two as he did last year—hullo!"

As he stood by the window, he perceived the Hoopers' parlourmaid coming up Beaumont Street and looking at the numbers on the houses. He ran out to meet her, and took a note from her hand.

"I will send or bring an answer. You needn't wait." He carried it into his own room, and locked the door before opening it.

* * * * *

"Dear Mr. Falloden,—Mr. Sorell has just been here. He left Mr. Radowitz at a nursing home after seeing the surgeons. It is all terrible. The hand is badly poisoned. They hope they may save it, but the injuries will make it impossible for him ever to play again as he has done. He may use it again a little, he may compose of course, but as a performer it's all over. Mr. Sorell says he is in despair—and half mad. They will watch him very carefully at the home, lest he should do himself any mischief. Mr. Sorell goes back to him to-morrow. He is himself broken-hearted.

"I am very, very sorry for you—and for Lord Meyrick,—and everybody. But I can't get over it—I can't ever forget it. There is a great deal in what you said this afternoon. I don't deny it. But, when it's all said, I feel I could never be happy with you; I should be always afraid of you—of your pride and your violence. And love mustn't be afraid.

"This horrible thing seems to have opened my eyes. I am of course very unhappy. But I am going up to-morrow to see Mr. Radowitz, who has asked for me. I shall stay with my aunt, Lady Langmoor, and nurse him as much as they will let me. Oh, and I must try and comfort him! His poor music!—it haunts me like something murdered. I could cry—and cry.

"Good night—and good-bye!

"CONSTANCE BLEDLOW."

The two notes fell at Falloden's feet. He stood looking out into Beaumont Street. The long narrow street, which only two days before had been alive with the stream of Commemoration, was quiet and deserted. A heavy thunder rain was just beginning to plash upon the pavements; and in the interval since he had taken the note from the maid's hand, it seemed to Falloden that the night had fallen.



PART II



CHAPTER XI

"So, Connie, you don't want to go out with me this afternoon?" said Lady Langmoor, bustling into the Eaton Square drawing-room, where Connie sat writing a letter at a writing-table near the window, and occasionally raising her eyes to scan the street outside.

"I'm afraid I can't, Aunt Sophia. You remember, I told you, Mr. Sorell was coming to fetch me."

Lady Langmoor looked rather vague. She was busy putting on her white gloves, and inspecting the fit of her grey satin dress, as she saw it in the mirror over Connie's head.

"You mean—to see the young man who was hurt? Dreadfully sad of course, and you know him well enough to go and see him in bed? Oh, well, of course, girls do anything nowadays. It is very kind of you."

Connie laughed, but without irritation. During the week she had been staying in the Langmoors' house, she had resigned herself to the fact that her Aunt Langmoor—as it seemed to her—was a very odd and hardly responsible creature, the motives of whose existence she did not even begin to understand. But both her aunt and Lord Langmoor had been very kind to their new-found niece. They had given a dinner-party and a tea-party in her honour; they had taken her to several crushes a night, and introduced her to a number of their own friends. And they would have moved Heaven and earth to procure her an invitation to the Court ball they themselves attended, on the day after Connie's arrival, if only, as Lady Langmoor plaintively said—"Your poor mother had done the right thing at the right time." By which she meant to express—without harshness towards the memory of Lady Risborough—how lamentable it was that, in addition to being christened, vaccinated and confirmed, Constance had not also been "presented" at the proper moment. However Constance probably enjoyed the evening of the Court ball more than any other in the week, since she went to the Italian Embassy after dinner to help her girl friend, the daughter of Italy's new Prime Minister, Elisa Bardinelli, to dress for the function; and the two girls were so enchanted to see each other, and had so much Roman gossip to get through, that Donna Elisa was scandalously late, and the Ambassador almost missed the Royal Procession.

But that had been the only spot of pleasure in Connie's fortnight. Lady Langmoor was puzzled by her pale looks and her evident lack of zest for the amusements offered her. She could only suppose that her niece was tired out with the balls of Commem., and Connie accepted the excuse gratefully. In reality she cared for nothing day after day but the little notes she got from Sorell night and morning giving her news of Radowitz. Till now he had been too ill to see her. But at last the doctor had given leave for a visit, and as soon as Lady Langmoor had gone off on her usual afternoon round of concerts and teas, Connie moved to the window, and waited for Sorell.

How long was it since she had first set foot in England and Oxford? Barely two months! And to Constance it seemed as if these months had been merely an unconscious preparation for this state of oppression and distress in which she found herself. Radowitz in his misery and pain—Falloden on the Cherwell path, defending himself by those passionate retorts upon her of which she could not but admit the partial justice—by these images she was perpetually haunted. Certainly she had no reason to look back with pleasure or self-approval on her Oxford experiences. In all her dealings with Falloden she had behaved with a reckless folly of which she was now quite conscious; courting risks; in love with excitement rather than with the man; and careless whither the affair might lead, so long as it gratified her own romantic curiosities as to the power of woman over the masculine mind.

Then, suddenly, all this had become serious. She was like the playing child on whose hand the wasp sat down. But in this case the moral sting of what had happened was abidingly sharp and painful. The tragedy of Radowitz, together with the charm interwoven with all her few recollections of him, had developed in Connie feelings of unbearable pity and tenderness, altogether new to her. Yet she was constantly thinking of Falloden; building up her own harrowed vision of his remorse, or dreaming of the Marmion ball, and the ride in the bluebell wood,—those two meetings in which alone she had felt happiness with him, something distinct from vanity, and a challenging love of power. Now it was all over. They would probably not meet again, till he had forgotten her, and had married some one else. She was quite aware of his fixed and businesslike views for himself and his career—as to marriage, travel, Parliament and the rest; and it had often pleased her wilfulness to think of modifying or upsetting them. She had now far more abundant proof of his haughty self-centredness than their first short acquaintance on the Riviera had given her; and yet—though she tried to hide it from herself—she was far more deeply absorbed in the thought of him. When all was said, she knew that she had treated him badly. The effect of his violence and cruelty towards Radowitz had been indeed to make her shudder away from him. It seemed to her still that it would be impossible to forgive herself should she ever make friends with Douglas Falloden again. She would be an accomplice in his hardness of heart and deed. Yet she recognised guiltily her own share in that hardness. She had played with and goaded him; she had used Radowitz to punish him; her championship of the boy had become in the end mere pique with Falloden; and she was partly responsible for what had happened. She could not recall Falloden's face and voice on their last walk without realising that she had hit him recklessly hard, and that her conduct to him had been one of the causes of the Marmion tragedy.

She was haunted by these thoughts, and miserable for lack of some comforting, guiding, and—if possible—absolving voice. She missed her mother childishly day and night, and all that premature self-possession and knowledge of the world, born of her cosmopolitan training, which at Oxford had made her appear so much older than other English girls of twenty, seemed to have broken away, and left her face to face with feelings she could not check, and puzzles she wanted somebody else to judge.

For instance—here was this coming visit to her aunts in Yorkshire. Their house in Scarfedale was most uncomfortably near to Flood Castle. The boundaries of the Falloden estate ran close to her aunts' village. She would run many chances of coming across Douglas himself, however much she might try to avoid him. At the same time Lady Marcia wrote continually, describing the plans that were being made to entertain her—eager, affectionate letters, very welcome in spite of their oddity to the girl's sore and orphaned mood. No she really couldn't frame some clumsy excuse, and throw her aunts over. She must go, and trust to luck.

And there would be Sorell and Otto to fall back upon—to take refuge with. Sorell had told her that the little rectory on the moors, whither he and Otto were bound as soon as the boy could be moved, stood somewhere about midway between her aunts' house and Flood, on the Scarfedale side of the range of moors girdling the Flood Castle valley.

It was strange perhaps that she should be counting on Sorell's neighbourhood. If she had often petulantly felt at Oxford that he was too good, too high above her to be of much use to her, she might perhaps have felt it doubly now. For although in some undefined way, ever since the night of the Vice-Chancellor's party, she had realised in him a deep interest in her, even a sense of responsibility for her happiness, which made him more truly her guardian than poor harassed Uncle Ewen, she knew very well that she had disappointed him, and she smarted under it. She wanted to have it out with him, and didn't dare! As she listened indeed to his agitated report on Radowitz's injuries, after the first verdict of the London surgeons, Connie had been conscious of a kind of moral terror. In the ordinary man of the world, such an incident as the Marmion ragging of a foreign lad, who had offended the prejudices of a few insolent and lordly Englishmen, would have merely stirred a jest. In Sorell it roused the same feelings that made him a lover of Swinburne and Shelley and the nobler Byron; a devoted reader of everything relating to the Italian Risorgimento; and sent him down every long vacation to a London riverside parish to give some hidden service to those who were in his eyes the victims of an unjust social system. For him the quality of behaviour like Falloden's towards Otto Radowitz was beyond argument. The tyrannical temper in things great or small, and quite independent of results, represented, for him, the worst treason that man can offer to man. In this case it had ended in hideous catastrophe to an innocent and delightful being, whom he loved. But it was not thereby any the worse; the vileness of it was only made manifest for all to see.

This hidden passion in him, as he talked, seemed to lay a fiery hand on Constance, she trembled under it, conscience-stricken. "Does he see the same hateful thing in me?—though he never says a word to hurt me?—though he is so gentle and so courteous?"

* * * * *

A tall figure became visible at the end of the street. Connie shut up her writing and ran upstairs to put on her things. When she came down, she found Sorell waiting for her with a furrowed brow.

"How is he?" She approached him anxiously. Sorell's look changed and cleared. Had she put on her white dress, had she made herself a vision of freshness and charm, for the poor boy's sake? He thought so; and his black eyes kindled.

"Better in some ways. He is hanging on your coming. But these are awfully bad times for the nurses—for all of us."

"I may take him some roses?" she said humbly, pointing to a basket she had brought in with her.

Sorell smiled assent and took it from her. As they were speeding in a hansom towards the Portland Place region, he gave her an account of the doctors' latest opinion. It seemed that quite apart from the blood-poisoning, which would heal, the muscles and nerves of the hand were fatally injured. All hope of even a partial use of it was gone.

"Luckily he is not a poor man. He has some hundreds a year. But he had a great scheme, after he had got his Oxford degree, of going to the new Leschetizsky school in Vienna for two years, and then of giving concerts in Warsaw and Cracow, in aid of the great Polish museum now being formed at Cracow. You know what a wild enthusiasm he has for Polish history and antiquities. He believes his country will rise again, and it was his passion—his most cherished hope—to give his life and his gift to her. Poor lad!"

The tears stood in Connie's eyes.

"But he can still compose?" she urged piteously.

Sorell shrugged his shoulders.

"Yes, if he has the heart—and the health. I never took much account before of his delicacy. One can see, to look at him, that he's not robust. But somehow he was always so full of life that one never thought of illness in connection with him. But I had a long talk with one of the doctors last week, who takes rather a gloomy view. A shock like this sometimes lets loose all the germs of mischief in a man's constitution. And his mother was undoubtedly consumptive. Well, we must do our best."

He sighed. There was silence till they turned into Wimpole Street and were in sight of the nursing home. Then Connie said in a queer, strained voice: "You don't know that it was partly I who did it."

Sorell turned upon her with a sudden change of expression. It was as though she had said something he had long expected, and now that it was said a great barrier between them had broken down. He looked at her with shining eyes from which the veil of reserve had momentarily lifted. She saw in them both tenderness and sorrow.

"I don't think you need feel that," he said gently. Her lips trembled. She looked straight before her into the hot vista of the street.

"I just played with him—with his whole future, as it's turned out—without a thought."

Sorell knew that she was thinking of the Magdalen ball, of which he had by now heard several accounts. He guessed she meant that her provocation of Falloden had contributed to the tragedy, and that the thought tormented her. But neither of them mentioned Falloden's name. Sorell put out his hand and grasped hers. "Otto's only thought about you is that you gave him the happiest evening he ever spent in England," he said with energy. "You won't misunderstand."

Her eyes filled with tears. But there was no time to say more. The hansom drew up.



They found Radowitz lying partly dressed on the balcony of his back room, which overlooked a tiny walled patch of grass and two plane-trees. The plane-tree seems to have been left in pity to London by some departing rural deity. It alone nourishes amid the wilderness of brick; and one can imagine it as feeling a positive satisfaction, a quiet triumph, in the absence of its stronger rivals, oak and beech and ash, like some gentle human life escaped from the tyrannies of competition. These two great trees were the guardian genii of poor Otto's afternoons. They brought him shade and coolness, even in the hottest hours of a burning June.

Connie sat down beside him, and they looked at each other in silence. Sorell, after a few gay words, had left them together. Radowitz held her hand in his own left. The other was bandaged and supported on a pillow. "When she got used to the golden light filtering through the plane leaves, she saw that he was pale and shrunken, that his eyes were more living and blue than ever, and his hair more like the burnished halo of some Florentine or Siennese saint. Yet the whole aspect was of something stricken. She felt a foreboding, a terror, of which she knew she must let nothing appear.

"Do you mind my staring?" he said presently, with his half-sad, half-mischievous smile. "You are so nice to look at."

She tried to laugh.

"I put on my best frock. Do you like it?"

"For me?" he said, wondering. "And you brought me these roses?"

He lifted some out of the basket, looked at them, then let them drop listlessly on his knee. "I am afraid I don't care for such things, as I used to do. Before—this happened, I had a language of my own, in which I could express everything—as artists or poets can. Now—I am struck dumb. There is something crying in me—that can find no voice. And when one can't express, one begins not to feel!"

She had to check the recurring tears before she could reply.

"But you can still compose?"

Her tone, in repeating the same words she had used to Sorell, fell into the same pleading note.

He shook his head, almost with irritation.

"It was out of the instrument—out of improvisation—that all my composing grew. Do you remember the tale they tell of George Sand, how when she began a novel, she made a few dots and scratches on a sheet of paper, and as she played with them they ran into words, and then into sentences—that suggested ideas—and so, in half an hour, she had sketched a plot, and was ready to go to work? So it was with me. As I played, the ideas came. I am not one of your scientific musicians who can build up everything in vacuo. I must translate everything into sound—through my fingers. It was the same with Chopin." He pointed to a life of Chopin that was lying open on the couch beside him.

"But you will do wonders with your left hand. And your right will perhaps improve. The doctors mayn't know," she pleaded, catching at straws. "Dear Otto—don't despair!"

He flushed and smiled. His uninjured hand slipped back into hers again.

"I like you to call me Otto. How dear that was of you! May I call you Constance?"

She nodded. There was a sob in her throat that would not let her speak.

"I don't despair—now," he said, after a moment. "I did at first. I wanted to put an end to myself. But, of course, it was Sorell who saved me. If my mother had lived, she could not have done more."

He turned away his face so that Constance should not see it. When he looked at her again, he was quite calm and smiling.

"Do you know who come to see me almost every day?"

"Tell me."

"Meyrick—Lord Meyrick, and Robertson. Perhaps you don't know him. He's a Winchester man, a splendid cricketer. It was Robertson I was struggling with when I fell. How could he know I should hurt myself? It wasn't his fault and he gave up his 'choice' for the Oxford Eleven. They put him in at the last moment. But he wouldn't play. I didn't know till afterwards. I told him he was a great fool."

There was a pause. Then Connie said—with difficulty—"Did—did Mr. Falloden write? Has he said anything?"

"Oh yes, he sent a message. After all, when you run over a dog, you send a message, don't you?" said the lad with sudden bitterness. "And I believe he wrote a letter—after I came here. But I didn't open it. I gave it to Sorell."

Then he raised himself on his pillows and looked keenly at Connie.

"You see the others didn't mean any harm. They were drunk, and it was a row. But Falloden wasn't drunk—and he did mean—"

"Oh, not to hurt you so?" cried Connie involuntarily.

"No—but to humble and trample on me," said the youth with vehemence, his pale cheeks flaming. "He knew quite well what he was about. I felt that when they came into my room. He is cruel—he has the temper of the torturer—in cold blood—"

A shudder of rage went through him. His excitable Slav nature brought everything back to him—as ugly and as real as when it happened.

"Oh, no—no!" said Constance, putting her hand over her eyes.

Radowitz controlled himself at once.

"I won't say any more," he said in a low voice, breathing deep—"I won't say any more." But a minute afterwards he looked up again, his brow contracting—"Only, for God's sake, don't marry him!"

"Don't be afraid," said Constance. "I shall never marry him!"

He looked at her piteously. "Only—if you care for him—what then? You are not to be unhappy!—you are to be the happiest person in the world. If you did care for him—I should have to see some good in him—and that would be awful. It is not because he did me an injury, you understand. The other two are my friends—they will be always my friends. But there is something in Falloden's soul that I hate—that I would like to fight—till either he drops or I. It is the same sort of feeling I have towards those who have killed my country."

He lay frowning, his blue eyes sombrely fixed and strained.

"But now"—he drew himself sharply together—"you must talk of something else, and I will be quite quiet. Tell me where you have been—what you have seen—the theatre—the opera—everything!"

She did her best, seeing already the anxious face of the nurse in the window behind. And as she got up to go, she said, "I shall come again very soon. And when you go to Yorkshire, I shall see you perhaps every day."

He looked up in astonishment and delight, and she explained that at Scarfedale Manor, her aunts' old house, she would be only two or three miles from the high moorland vicarage whither he was soon to be moved.

"That will do more for me than doctors!" said Radowitz with decision. Yet almost before she had reached the window opening on the balcony, his pain, mental and physical, had clutched him again. He did not look up as she waved farewell; and Sorell hurried her away.

Thenceforward she saw him almost every day, to Lady Langmoor's astonishment. Sorell too, and his relation to Connie, puzzled her greatly. Connie assured her with smiles that she was not in love with the handsome young don, and never thought of flirting with him. "He was mother's friend, Aunt Sophia," she would say, as though that settled the matter entirely. But Lady Langmoor could not see that it settled it at all. Mr. Sorell could not be much over thirty—the best time of all for falling in love. And here was Connie going to pictures with him, and the British Museum, and to visit the poor fellow in the nursing home. It was true that the aunt could never detect the smallest sign of love-making between them. And Connie was always putting forward that Mr. Sorell taught her Greek. As if that kind of thing wasn't one of the best and oldest gambits in the great game of matrimony! Lady Langmoor would have felt it her solemn duty to snub the young man had it been at all possible. But it was really not possible to snub any one possessed of such a courteous self-forgetting dignity. And he came of a good Anglo-Irish family too. Lady Langmoor had soon discovered that she knew some of his relations, and placed him socially to a T. But, of course, any notion of his marrying Connie, with her money, her rank, and her good looks, would be simply ridiculous, so ridiculous that Lady Langmoor soon ceased to think about it, accepted his visits, and began to like him on her own account.

* * * * *

One evening towards the end of the first week in July, a hansom drew up before a house in Portman Square. Douglas Falloden emerged from it, as the door was opened by a maidservant.

The house, which had been occupied at the beginning of the season by the family, was given over now to a charwoman and a couple of housemaids, the senior of whom looked a little scared at the prospect of having to wait on the magnificent gentleman who had just entered the house. In general, when Mr. Douglas came up to town in the absence of his family, he put up at his own very expensive club, and the servants in Portman Square were not troubled with him. But they, like every one else, knew that something was going wrong with the Fallodens.

Falloden walked into the deserted and dust-sheeted house, while the cabman brought in his portmanteau. "Is Mr. Gregory here?" he enquired of the maid.

"Yes, sir, he is in the library. Please, sir, Mrs. O'Connor wants to know if you'll want dinner."

Falloden impatiently said "No," and walked on down a long passage to the library, which had been built out at the back of the house. Here the blinds had been drawn up, only to reveal the dusty desolation of an unused room, in which a few chairs had been uncovered, and a table cleared. A man rose from a chair beside the table, and he and Falloden shook hands. He was a round-faced and broad-shouldered person, with one of the unreadable faces developed by the life of a prominent solicitor, in contact with all sorts of clients and many varieties of business; and Falloden's sensitive pride had soon detected in his manner certain shades of expression to which the heir of Flood Castle was not accustomed.

"I am sorry to hear Sir Arthur is not well." Mr. Gregory spoke politely, but perhaps without that accent of grave and even tragic concern which six months earlier he would have given to the same words. "There is a great deal of heavy, and, I am afraid, disagreeable business to be done."

"My father is not fit for it," said Falloden abruptly. "I must do the best I can."

Mr. Gregory gave a sign of assent. He drew a packet of documents from his pocket, and spreading out a letter from Sir Arthur Falloden on the table, proceeded to deal with the points in it seriatim. Falloden sat beside him, looking carefully through the various documents handed to him, asking questions occasionally, and making notes of his own. In the dusty northern light of the room, his face had a curiously purple and congested look; and his eyes were dead tired. But he showed so much shrewdness in his various remarks that the solicitor secretly admitted his capacity, reflecting indeed once or twice that, young as he was, it would have been a good thing if his father had taken him into counsel earlier. After the discussion had lasted half an hour, Falloden pushed the papers away.

"I think I see. The broad facts are that my father can raise no more money, either on his securities, or on the land; his two banks are pressing him; and the Scotch mortgages must be paid. The estates, of course, will have to be sold. I am quite willing."

"So I understand. But it will take time and the bank overdrafts are urgent. Mason's Bank declare that if their debt is not paid—or freshly secured—within a month from now, they will certainly take proceedings. I must remind you they have been exceedingly forbearing."

"And the amount?" Falloden consulted his papers.

"Forty thousand. The securities on which Sir Arthur obtained it are now not worth more than eight."

The lawyer paused a moment, looked at his companion, and at last said—

"There are, of course, your own expectations from Lord Dagnall. I do not know whether you and your father have considered them. But I imagine it would be possible to raise money on them."

Falloden laughed. The sound was a mixture of irritation and contempt.

"Uncommonly little! The fact is my uncle—at seventy-two—is philandering with a lady-housekeeper he set up a year ago. She seems to be bent on netting him, and my father thinks she'll do it. If she does, my uncle will probably find himself with an heir of his own. Anyway the value of my prospects is enormously less than it was. All the neighbours are perfectly aware of what is going on. Oh, I suppose he'll leave me something—enough to keep me out of the workhouse. But there's nothing to be got out of it now."

There was another silence. Falloden pondered the figures before him.

"There are always the pictures," he said at last, looking up.

The lawyer's face lightened.

"If you and Sir Arthur will sell! But as you know they are heirlooms, and you could stop it."

"On the contrary, I am ready to agree to it," said Falloden briefly. "But there will be a lot of legal business, won't there?"

"Certainly. But it can all be put through in time. And directly it was known that you would sell, the whole situation would be changed."

"We might save something out of the wreck?" said Falloden, looking up.

The lawyer nodded gravely.

"Something—certainly."

"What are they worth?" said Falloden, taking a note-book from his pocket, and looking at a list scribbled on its first page.

Mr. Gregory laughed.

"There is no market in the ordinary sense for such pictures as yours. There are only half a dozen millionaires in the world who could buy them—and one or two museums." He paused a moment, looking thoughtfully at the young man before him. "There happens, however,"—he spoke slowly—"to be a buyer at this moment in London, whom it would be difficult to beat—in the matter of millions."

He mentioned the name.

"Not an American? Well, send him along." Falloden raised his eyebrows. "If my father doesn't feel able to see him, I can tackle him. He can choose his own day and hour. All our best pictures are at Flood."

"And they include—"

"Four Rembrandts," said Falloden, looking at his list, "two Titians, two Terburgs, a Vermeer of Delft, heaps of other Dutchmen—four full-length Gainsboroughs, and three half-lengths—two full-length Reynoldses, three smaller—three Lawrences, a splendid Romney, three Hoppners, two Constables, etc. The foreign pictures were bought by my grandfather from one of the Orleans collections about 1830. The English pictures—the portraits—have all been at Flood since they were painted, and very few of them have ever been exhibited. I scribbled these few facts down before I left home. There is, of course, an elaborate catalogue."

For the first time the lawyer's countenance as he listened showed a flash of active sympathy. He was himself a modest collector, and his house at Richmond contained a number of pretty things.

"Sir Arthur will mind parting with them very much, I fear," he said with real concern. "I wish with all my heart it had been possible to find some other way out. But we have really done our best."

Falloden nodded. He sat looking straight before him, one hand drumming on the table. The whole attitude was haughtily irresponsive. The slight note of compassion in Mr. Gregory's tone was almost intolerable to him, and the lawyer guessed it.

"Insolent cub!" he thought to himself; and thenceforward allowed himself no departure from a purely business tone. It was settled that the buyer—with legal caution, Mr. Gregory for the moment threw no further light upon him—was, if possible, to be got hold of at once, and an appointment was to be made for Flood Castle, where Falloden, or his father, would receive him.

Then the solicitor departed, and Falloden was left to pace up and down the dismal room, his hands in his pockets—deep in thought.

He looked back upon a fortnight of unbroken worry and distress. The news with which his father had received him on his return from Oxford had seemed to him at first incredible. But the facts on which it was based were only too substantial, and his father, broken in health and nerve, now that silence was once thrown aside, poured out upon his son a flood of revelation and confession that soon made what had happened tragically clear. It was the familiar story of wealth grasping at yet more wealth, of the man whose judgment and common sense begin to play him false, when once the intoxication of money has gone beyond a certain point. Dazzled by some first speculative successes, Sir Arthur had become before long a gambler over half the world, in Canada, the States, Egypt, Argentina. One doubtful venture supported another, and the City, no less than the gambler himself, was for a time taken in. But the downfall of a great Egyptian company, which was to have extracted untold wealth from a strip of Libyan desert, had gradually but surely brought down everything else in its train. Blow after blow fell, sometimes rapidly, sometimes tardily. Sir Arthur tried every expedient known to the financier in extremis, descending ever lower in the scale of credit and reputation; and in vain. One tragic day in June, after a long morning with the Gregory partners, Sir Arthur came home to the splendid house in Yorkshire, knowing that nothing now remained but to sell the estates, and tell Douglas that his father had ruined him. Lady Laura's settlement was safe; and on that they must live.

The days of slow realisation, after Douglas's return, had tried both father and son severely. Sir Arthur was worn out and demoralised by long months of colossal but useless effort to retrieve what he had done. Falloden, with his own remorse, and his own catastrophe to think over, was called on to put it aside, to think for and help his father. He had no moral equipment—no trained character—equal to the task. But mercifully for them both, his pride came into play; his shrewd intelligence also, and his affection for his father—the most penetrable spot so far in his hard and splendid youth. He had done his best—a haughty, ungracious best—but still he had done it, and in the course of a few days, now that the tension of concealment was over, Sir Arthur had become almost childishly dependent upon him.

A church clock struck somewhere in the distance. Falloden looked at his watch. Time to go to some restaurant and dine. With Gregory's figures running in his head, he shrank from his Club where he would be sure to meet a host of Harrow and Oxford acquaintance, up for the Varsity match, and the latter end of the season. After dinner he would look into a music-hall, and about eleven make his way to the Tamworth House ball.

He must come back, however, to Portman Square sometime to dress. Lady Tamworth had let it be known privately that the Prince and Princess were coming to her ball, and that the men were expected to appear in knee-breeches and silk stockings. He had told his valet at Flood to pack them; and he supposed that fool of a housemaid would be equal to unpacking for him, and putting out his things.

* * * * *

"How do you do, Douglas?" said Lady Tamworth, an imposing, bejewelled figure standing at the head of the galleried staircase of Tamworth House. "Saw your father yesterday and thought him looking very seedy."

"Yes, he's not the thing," said Douglas. "We shall have to get him away to Marienbad, or somewhere of that kind."

Lady Tamworth looked at him closely, her eyelids fluttering just a little. Douglas noticed the flutter, and knew very well what it meant. Lady Tamworth and his father were first cousins. No doubt all their relations were busy discussing their affairs day and night; the City, he knew, was full of rumours, and certain newspapers had already scented the quarry ahead, and were beginning to make ghoulish hints and gibberings. As he passed on into the ballroom, every nerve in him was sensitive and alive. He seemed to have eyes at the back of his head, to catch everywhere the sudden attention, the looks of curiosity, sometimes of malice, that followed him through the crowd. He spoke to a great many acquaintance, to girls he had been accustomed to dance with and their mothers. The girls welcomed him just as usual; but the casual or interrupted conversation, which was all the mothers could spare him, showed him very soon how much was known or guessed, of the family disasters. He understood that he was no longer in the running for these exquisite creatures in their silks and satins. The campaigning mothers had already dropped him out of their lists. His pride recoiled in self-contempt from its own smart. But he had been accustomed to walk this world as one of its princelings, and indifference to what it might think of him was not immediately attainable.

All the same, he was still handsome, distinguished, and well born. No one could overlook him in a ballroom, and few women could be quite indifferent to his approach. He danced as much as he wished, and with the prettiest girls. His eyes meanwhile were always wandering over the crowd, searching in vain for a delicate face, and a wealth of brown hair. Yet she had told him herself that Lady Langmoor was to bring her to this ball. He only wanted to see her—from a distance—not to speak to her—or be spoken to.

"Douglas," said a laughing voice in his ear—"will you dance the royal quadrille with me? Something's happened to my partner. Mother sent me to ask you."

He turned and saw the youngest daughter of the house, Lady Alice, with whom he had always been on chaffing, cousinly terms; and as she spoke a sudden stir and hush in the room showed that the royal party had arrived, and were being received in the hall below.

Falloden's first irritable instinct was to refuse. Why should he go out of his way to make himself a show for all these eyes? Then a secret excitement—an expectation—awoke in him, and he nodded a laughing comment to Lady Alice, who just stayed to throw him a mocking compliment on his knee-breeches, and ran away. Immediately afterwards, the royal party came through the lane made for them, shaking hands with their acquaintance, and bowing right and left. As they disappeared into the room beyond, which had been reserved for them, the crowd closed up behind them. Falloden heard a voice at his elbow.

"How are you? I hear you're to be in the quadrille. You'll have the pretty lady we saw at Oxford for a colleague."

He turned to see Mrs. Glendower, very much made-up and glittering with diamonds. Her face seemed to him to have grown harder and plainer, her smile more brazen since their Oxford meeting. But she filled up time agreeably till the quadrille was ready. She helped him to pin on the small rosette made of the Tamworth colours which marked all the dancers in the royal quadrille, and she told him that Constance Bledlow was to dance it with the Tamworths' eldest son, Lord Bletchley.

"There's a great deal of talk about her, as perhaps you know. She's very much admired. The Langmoors are making a great fuss about her, and people say she'll have all their money as well as her own some day—not to speak of the old aunts in Yorkshire. I shouldn't wonder if the Tamworths had their eye upon her. They're not really well off."

Falloden gaily declared that he would back his cousin Mary Tamworth to get anything she wanted. Mrs. Glendower threw him a sudden, sharp look. Then she was swept into the crowd. A couple of men in brilliant uniform came by, clearing a space in the centre of the room, and Falloden saw Lady Alice beckoning.

In another minute or two he and she were in their places, and what the newspapers who record these things call "a brilliant scene" was in full tide:—the Prince and Princess dancing with the master and mistress of the house, and the rest of the quadrille made up of the tallest men and handsomest women that Lady Tamworth, with a proper respect both to rank and to looks, had been able to collect.

The six-foot-three Falloden and his fairylike partner were much observed, and Lady Alice bubbling over with fun and spirits, found her cousin Douglas, whom in general she disliked, far better company than usual. As for him, he was only really conscious of one face and form in the stately dance itself, or in the glittering crowd which was eagerly looking on. Constance Bledlow, in filmy white, was his vis-a-vis. He saw her quick movement as she perceived him. Then she bowed slightly, he ceremoniously. Their hands touched at intervals, and not a few of the spectators noticed these momentary contacts with a thrill of pleasure—the splendid physique of the young man, the flowerlike grace of the girl. Once or twice, as they stood together in the centre of the "chain," a few words would have been possible. But Constance never spoke, nor did Falloden. He had thought her very pale at first sight. But her cheek flushed with dancing; and with every minute that passed she seemed to him more lovely and more remote, like a spirit from another world, into which he could not pass.