How I wished I could help him even in so small and humble a fashion! At least, I could try to draw his thoughts away for the moment from the unhealed wound violently torn open. It was a temptation to dwell on it, to look at it and feed my anger; but on his wistful hint I threw the temptation off. Instead of returning to our interrupted talk of his adventures as I wished to do, I answered Eagle's questions about life at "The Haven," and told him pathetic or funny stories of our refugees. "I'm getting to be quite a weird combination of Red Cross nurse, nursery-governess, and nursemaid," I said. "I really ought to design some special sort of costume suited to my metier, but I've never had time to think one out yet! Meanwhile, I wear a badge which keeps up my courage, and gives me back my strength whenever I'm tired. You couldn't guess what it is!"

"The flag of the Allies?" he ventured.

"No. The chevron you gave me when you made me your corporal. Do you remember?"

I saw by his eyes that he was touched. A gleam of the old light flashed into them, and brightened his smile. "Do I remember?" he echoed. "Yes, I remember, Peggy, only too well. And I remember the day you flew with me from Hendon in the poor old Golden Eagle, heaven rest her ashes! The day when—when Lady Diana failed me, and your pluck and presence of mind saved us both from coming to grief. I remember lots of other things you've probably forgotten; and I use the memories for balm."

I had to look down suddenly to hide the tears that stung my eyelids. But I winked them away in an instant, and was bracing myself to make him laugh by mimicking the man who had introduced us: Nebuchadnezzar of Wardour Street.

When great hothouse peaches and amethyst bunches of grapes were brought by the footman, I knew that soon Princess Sanzanow would smile at the French duchess, and we should all troop away to leave the men. I was sure that Eagle would not join the ladies conventionally in the drawing-room, and I did not want that summons to mean a long good-bye. I asked hastily, therefore, if he would come and see me and the Miss Splatchleys and our Belgians at "The Haven," when he had grown a little stronger.

"I'm strong enough now," he said. "Write to-morrow to tell me when I may come, and let it be soon, for the minute I'm fit I shall go back to the front, of course."

"Of course," I repeated firmly, though my heart felt as if it had been squeezed by a mailed fist. "I will write the first thing in the morning, and send you a formal, written invitation from dear Miss Emma and Miss Jane."

"Do. My address is 21a Whitehall Court. You won't forget, will you?"

"No, I won't forget," I assured him, with a secret smile.

"Because I shall beg the princess as she passes to forgive me if I go without bidding her farewell in the drawing-room. Being a bit of a crock still gives me a good excuse, and—she'll understand and be glad to be rid of me."

Even as he spoke, the signal I'd been expecting was given by our hostess. We all rose, smiling at our neighbours, and the men stood while we women trailed to the door. I, being last of all the guests, saw the princess pause as Captain March took a step forward; and I knew that he was bidding her farewell.

Then I went on, and in the drawing-room found Di waiting to pounce, anger for me in her eyes, a smile for everybody else on her lips.

"How dared you!" she whispered. "How dared you treat that man as if he were your best friend!"

"Because he is," I answered bluntly.

"Then you're no friend of ours! Sidney and I will never forgive you for this night—trying to put us both in the wrong as you have!"

"It's an honour not to be forgiven for that," I flung back at her. "Now I'm going to tell the princess that I have to get back early to my Belgians, and I shall have a taxi called to take me away because, after this, I can't even accept from Sidney a lift in his motor."

"You must accept it," whispered Diana furiously, "if only to take the things we're giving you out of his house. It is his house, you know; and though you're my sister, I can't expect him to ask you into it again as a visitor, after your deliberate insult to us both to-night. Your being no more than a child has excused some things, but it can't excuse this; for you haven't acted like a child. You've acted like a malicious woman, and—I think we've reached the end."

"I think so, too," I replied. "Don't be afraid. I shan't trouble either of you after to-night. I'll not go in your motor, but I'll go to your house and fetch my trunk. As for the things you were giving to the refugees, I'll take them or not, as you like."

"I'd like to have the rubbish out of the way and see the last of it," said Diana; and looked as if she would gladly see the last of me.

I apologized prettily to the princess, explaining how early were the hours of "The Haven," and how much there was to do there. She forgave me with all her gracious charm, pressing my hand as if to show her gratitude for a certain incident which could not be mentioned in words; and five minutes later I was spinning alone in a taxi toward Park Lane.



CHAPTER XXIII

I had been offered the help of Celestine and Sidney's man to make up in parcels such clothes as I wished to take for our refugees and their menfolk; but now I determined to do all the work myself. The bored-looking footman who opened the house-door showed no surprise or interest on seeing her Ladyship's sister arrive in advance of the rest. He listened respectfully but dully as I briefly explained my errand and told him that I should need no help until I rang for my trunk and other things to be carried downstairs. When I had made this clear, I ran up to the room above Diana's and shut myself in, meaning to make such haste with what I had to do as to escape with my booty, if possible, before Di and her husband came home.

I was trembling still with excitement which clouded my mind and kept me from thinking clearly; for I was furiously angry and desperately sad at the same time. I said to myself that I didn't care if I never saw Diana again; yet my heart was ready to break because we had come to the parting of the ways. To-night, I thought, I was definitely giving up my family, or my family were giving me up, it mattered very little which. My father had never cared for me, therefore I had not cared for him as most girls care for their fathers. Di had made use of me, but had never loved me, and I had "seen through" her ever since I was a tiny child. Lately we became almost as strangers; and yet the two had been the only ones near to me. Breaking with them was like a small figure in a group on a big canvas suddenly loosening itself and falling off its background, a mere lonely bit of paint.

"What will become of me?" I wondered. "I can never go back to Ballyconal now. Yet I can't spend the rest of my life with the Miss Splatchleys. What shall I do when I'm not wanted there any more?"

Tears began to drop slowly from my eyes, then to rain fast over the clothing I tried to sort. I knew it was silly to think of such things. There would be plenty of time by and by to arrange the future. But I could not concentrate my mind on the work in hand until, as I tossed the neatly folded clothes about with a kind of stupid aimlessness, I came once more upon Sidney Vandyke's khaki uniform.

"This I will not take, anyhow!" I decided. "It would be of no use, and I do believe it might carry a curse with it, because of the evil thoughts of the man who wore it last. I wish I could burn it up!"

That I could not do; but to show spite I wreaked such childish vengeance as I could by dashing the uniform on to the floor and proceeding to trample on the coat with my high-heeled white satin slippers.

As I kicked it away in loathing at last, one of the slippers flew off and seemed spitefully to follow the coat as if to deal one final insult. It turned a somersault on the way, as defiantly as the Golden Eagle had "looped the loop" over German heads at Brussels, and then plumped down on top of the fallen garment, landing with its pointed satin nose poked under the flap of a slightly gaping breast-pocket.

I slipped my silk-clad foot into the shoe where it lay, and pushing the point still further into the pocket, thus lifted the coat on my toe to give it another disgustful toss. As I did this it seemed that something crackled with the sound—or the feel, I could hardly tell which—of stiff paper. Then a very strange thing happened to me: suddenly I saw before my eyes, as clearly as though it were really there, the khaki-coloured notebook I had given Eagle—the notebook out of which he had torn a leaf with a message written on it for Major Vandyke.

I didn't know (I don't know now, and never shall) what painted this picture on my brain: whether it was the high, mysterious Power which had been leading me slowly but very surely to this minute, or whether it was nothing more than a mental association between a khaki coat worn by Eagle's enemy on that disastrous night and a faint crackle of paper jarring tensely on strung nerves. I know which I like to think; but in either case the effect was the same.

I saw the notebook. I saw Eagle hastily scrawling his appeal for a written order to fire the guns. I saw Major Vandyke wearing this coat, read the message, crumple up the paper, and then—then—the vision faded. But the question rang in my ears: what would he be likely to do with the paper? What should I have done had I been a man in his place? Would I have torn the message into bits and trusted to the wind to scatter it?...

No! If I meant to swear that no such document had ever reached me, I should have been afraid to leave bits of khaki-coloured, blue-lined paper lying about the ground. I should have crumpled the message deep down in the bottom of a pocket, and burnt it later, when I was safe in my own tent. Yes, that was what any man as quick-witted and unscrupulous as Sidney Vandyke would have been likely to do. He could not possibly have forgotten such a bit of evidence afterward, and left it in the pocket of his coat instead of destroying it; such things could happen only in the crudest melodramas, where the actors were mere puppets for uncritical and ignorant audiences to applaud. It was wildly absurd to dream that I might find any hidden treasure tucked away in a breast-pocket of Sidney Vandyke's cast-off uniform; and I did not for a moment believe it; yet the vision of the khaki-coloured paper had been so clear that I dared not resist the impulse it prompted.

I picked up the coat, holding it away from me gingerly, by the collar, as a small white cat might grip a large brown rat by the back of its neck. Then, also gingerly, I dipped my fingers into one pocket after another. All were empty: yet now quite distinctly I heard a crisp, delicate crackling of paper.

It was like searching for a ghost and seeing no sign, but catching a faint echo of invisible feet. Something was hidden there. I could not be mistaken. Perhaps the thing when found would not be worth finding; but a thousand times over, it was worth the pain of looking for.

I cleared a place on the large table which had been spread with contributions for the refugees, and laid the coat out flat. All over the two fronts I slowly, carefully, passed my fingers until, between the cloth and lining, far down on the left side near the edge of the coat, I touched the thing that crackled.

Whatever it was, this thing must have slipped down through a break in one of the pockets. I explored again, and discovered a small rip not more than two inches in length at the bottom of the inside breast-pocket. But the lost bit of paper could not be got at through this opening. The lining of the coat would have to be slit down before the hidden thing could be reached, and I pulled the pocket wrong side out, hoping with a quick jerk to tear it from the coat. More easily said than done! The material was expensively tough, and resisted my frantic tuggings, yet I wouldn't give up. I dared not go foraging downstairs for a pair of scissors; neither did I wish to ring for a servant to bring me them. I wanted desperately to be alone with this cast-off garment of Sidney Vandyke's—alone with any secret I might force it to yield up.

The coat seemed to resist every effort and trick of mine, as if it still served its old master and were stubbornly resolved to protect him against a stranger's prying; but at last a sharp jerk made a stitch give way. After that the rest was easy. I wrenched the pocket half out, and that once done I was able with both hands to tear the lining down nearly its whole length. Then I thrust my hand between it and the cloth, and touched a crumpled piece of paper.

I dreaded while I longed to look at what I had discovered: for I realized that in all human probability I was about to suffer a crushing disappointment. This lost scrap of paper might prove to be part of some torn, irrelevant letter of long ago; or it might be an American greenback, or a forgotten memorandum. As I withdrew my hand—the paper in it—involuntarily I shut my eyes, as if shrinking from a blow. But I scolded myself for cowardly weakness, and opened my eyes again to see a folded, refolded, and crumpled piece of khaki-coloured paper ruled with blue lines. Then I knew that, from the first faint crackling which I had felt rather than heard, I had been sure in my heart of finding this thing: sure that I had always been meant by Fate to find it.

With cold and shaking fingers I cautiously unfolded the paper without tearing it. Yes! It was a leaf torn from a notebook—the khaki notebook I had given Eagle. One page was blank. The other was almost covered with writing, scribbled with blue pencil, a pencil which must have been rather blunt, because the marking was heavy, though it showed signs of haste. No one familiar with Eagle March's hand could have failed to recognize it as his, rough and hurried as was the scrawl.

At the top of the page was jotted down the date of that unforgettable night at El Paso.

"Have just received by your orderly verbal command to fire nos. one and two guns, aiming beyond Mexican end of bridge. I beg if this is correct that you repeat order in writing.

"MARCH."

Here was the evidence which would have saved Eagle at his court-martial and proved Major Vandyke a liar and blackguard. He had, no doubt, crushed the incriminating paper into the deepest depths of his breast-pocket, perhaps covering it up with other things lest it should flutter away and betray him. There had been no time to destroy the paper at that moment, and so he had put off disposing of it until after his famous rush across the Rio Grande had been safely accomplished. When he returned and could get back to his own tent, his first thought must have been of the document whose existence he meant to deny. To empty his pocket and find the paper gone must have been a frightful blow, and Sidney could hardly have known a peaceful moment until after the court-martial, when all danger of the lost message coming to light seemed to be past forever.

No wonder (as Tony had written, describing the trial) that the accuser had been more worn and nerve-shattered than the accused. No wonder that, even when he arrived in England, Sidney Vandyke had looked changed and ill! No wonder he had taken to steadying his nerves with alcohol, and had not tried to conquer the habit!

By this time he must have ceased to dread the reappearance of the vanished document; but it had reappeared, and it was not too late to be of use. The small scrap of paper in my hand was big enough to give me all the power I had prayed for—the power to prove Captain March's innocence and Major Vandyke's guilt.

"Eagle said to-night that if the time ever came when he could take revenge without putting himself in the wrong, God help Vandyke!" I remembered. "We little thought how soon it would come. But it's here! It's here! The 'stone wall' has tumbled down, like the wall of Jericho, and it's Sidney Vandyke's head, not Eagle's, that will be broken."

I was almost out of my wits with joy. I danced a war-dance of triumph, swinging the khaki coat and waving the document over my head. Then, when a wild whirl had satisfied my wish to celebrate, I refolded the bit of paper, hung the coat over my arm, and dashed to the door. Downstairs I plunged, passed Diana's room, and had reached the head of the stairs leading to the ground floor when I actually bumped against Di coming up. If I had not stepped hastily back I should have thrown her downstairs. As it was, she caught at the banisters and barred the way against me.

The flashing glimpse I had caught of her face, before we almost telescoped like two trains running into one another, had shown it pale and depressed; but the surprise of our encounter brought light to her eyes and colour to her cheeks. Her look changed from mere startled annoyance to puzzled suspicion. "Good gracious!" she exclaimed. "One would have thought the house was on fire! Another instant and you'd have knocked me down. What is the matter with you, Peggy?"

"I'm in a hurry, that's all," I answered.

"What are you doing with Sidney's coat over your arm?" she catechized me sharply.

"Didn't you know it was among the 'rubbish' upstairs that you were so anxious to get rid of?" I retorted in the same tone.

"Yes, I knew that; but why do you career downstairs with it as if the sky were falling, and leave everything else? You shall tell me! I won't let you go till you do."

With the first words she had spoken after our collision, Di had mounted the top step, though still guarding the way down; and with her shrill threat she pushed me back from the stairhead by throwing herself against me and at the same time grasping the coat as if to snatch it off my arm.

Diana is much taller and stronger than I am. She could take the coat from me by force; and the thought darted through my head that without it to prove where and how the lost message had been found, the paper would lose half its value. My word, unsupported by proof, would not be enough against Major Vandyke, for it was known that I detested him, and was a sworn friend to Captain March. I must keep the coat at any cost to myself—or even to Diana.

Standing at bay, looking up at her white face of anger and suspicion, I felt very small and frail of body; but my soul gathered strength of battle. I clasped my bare arms over the coat and locked my fingers round my two elbows.

"This is mine," I said. "You gave it to me to do as I liked with. You've no right to take it away. I'm going to make a present of it to somebody who's been robbed of everything, and needs it."

This was the best explanation I could think of. But it was not good enough for Diana. She attempted to push me farther back, and I resisted, trying to wriggle myself free and elude her; but she was on the alert, and too quick as well as too strong for my trick to succeed.

"No, you shan't slip away like that, you little wild-cat!" she cried, beginning to pant slightly. In the white light of the electric candelabra, which made the corridor bright as day, I saw her beautiful bosom heave under its double rope of creamy pearls. All the charming softness which men loved was gone from her face. It looked hard and cruel.

Just as I meant to escape at any price, so she meant at any price to keep me. I guessed that she had come home alone, and let herself in with a latch-key, for apparently there were no servants about. That was fortunate for me; and fortunate that Father and Kitty, and above all Sidney, had gone on somewhere else from the Russian Embassy, for there would have been very little chance for me if I had had to run the gauntlet.

"You hate Sidney. I believe you hate me, too!" she went on when she had got her breath. "I don't trust anything you say or do. You've some horrid idea in your head. I read that in your face the instant I saw you here. You mean mischief. What's in your mind I don't know, but I shall know! You'd better tell me!"

"I've told you all I have to tell," I said. "If I'm a wild-cat, you're a tigress. What will the servants think if they come and see you like this?"

"I don't care what they think. And besides, they won't come. I've changed my mind about giving you that coat. I must ask Sidney first if he wants to keep it for any reason. I'll let you know to-morrow."

"To-morrow will be too late. I've to see my man to-night."

"Why are you taking him the coat, and not the rest of the suit?" she persisted.

"It's only the coat that will be of use to him." I had the answer ready.

Without warning she made another dive at the coat to catch me unawares. She failed and my hold tightened; but the sudden wrench twisted the thing partly wrong side out, to show the lining. The cry Diana gave, the horror that flashed in lightning from her eyes, told me what she had seen, what she must have guessed.

"My God, Peggy!" she gasped. "You believe that of him? You were seeking for—but you found nothing. Of course—of course you found nothing!"

"There's nothing there now," I said, trying not to let my voice tremble.

Diana's eyes searched mine. They were dilated. Her face, and even her lips—always coral red—were sickly pale. "What do you mean?" she asked in a low, choked voice. "Do you mean that you did find—oh! I see now—the whole disgraceful thing! You were taking this coat to Eagle March. You traitor! I thank God I came in time."

She seized me by both shoulders. Her white hands, with their rose-pink nails and little round dimples at the finger roots, felt hard and remorseless as steel claws. She looked suddenly capable of anything. The thought struck on my heart like a hammer-stroke that she would stop at nothing to save Sidney's reputation. For the first time, I was afraid for myself. I was afraid she would be too strong for me. She would push me along the corridor and through the open door into her room. If I screamed she would tell the servants I had gone mad. She would get the coat away from me. She would find the paper, if she had to tear my clothes off to do it. Once inside the room, she would have all the advantage if she could turn the key and lock us in together. I, too, was in a mood to stop at nothing. I was fighting for the man I loved. She was fighting merely for a man with whom her fate was bound up; but in strength of body I was no match for her. It was only in a battle of wits that I might have a fair chance. But on the other side of her door it would be too late to use my brains.

"It's now or never!" I thought.

Clutching the coat for dear life with one hand, with the other I snatched at the pearls which were the "immediate jewels" of my sister's soul. I gave the double rope a sharp jerk, and with a snap the string yielded. Pearls spouted in all directions like a creamy spray, and with a cry, involuntarily Diana loosened her hold on me to save them. That was my chance! I ducked under her arms and dashed downstairs—like a streak of lightning. Before Diana had run halfway down I was at the door. For an instant I fumbled in an anguish of suspense at the catch. Then it yielded. I slammed the door in Di's face, and bare-shouldered as I was (I had taken off my wrap to do the packing) I ran like a rabbit after a taxi I saw at a little distance.

"Taxi, taxi!" I called. And though my lips were dry and my voice seemed to my own ears almost inaudible, as when one tries to scream in a nightmare, the man heard and stopped. Luckily the taxi was empty. If it had not been things might have ended differently; for as I scrambled in, panting, "Quick, number 21a Whitehall Court!" I saw, with one corner of my eye, that Diana stood in the doorway looking out.



CHAPTER XXIV

As the taxi sped away with me, the relief was so great that I lay back on the seat, limp and half fainting. I let myself rest there, revelling in safety after the strain of danger. Nothing could keep me now from Eagle, I told myself, and nothing could stand between him and his righteous revenge on Sidney Vandyke. If he were not at home when I got to Whitehall Court I would wait until he came, even if I had to sit in the taxi, within sight of his door, all night. But he would be at home! I felt that, when he left the Russian Embassy, he had been in no mood to go anywhere else, unless for a lonely walk; and, even so, he ought to have got back by this time. He had left before I had, and I must have arrived at Diana's an hour ago.

It was only when the taxi drew up in Whitehall Court that I remembered leaving my little gold bag—a present from Kitty—with my discarded cloak in Park Lane. All the money I had was in the bag. I could not pay the chauffeur; but, in any case, I meant to keep him till I learned whether or no Eagle were at home.

To my chagrin, the man looked dubious. "How long, Miss, will you want me to wait?" he inquired.

I explained that I could not tell yet. I must find out whether the friend I had come to see were in. If not I might need to keep the taxi a long time.

"Very sorry, Miss," the chauffeur replied, "but I have an appointment in a quarter of an hour from now in Downing Street with an official gentleman I serve pretty often. I was on the way there when you called me; but when you said 'Whitehall Court', I took you up because you seemed in a hurry and I thought there was plenty of time. I supposed you was going to stop here, it bein' rather late in the night for a young lady, but I can't possibly stay more'n five minutes longer. Tell you what I can do, I'll ask another feller to come along and wait for you."

There was no help for it. I had to confess that I was penniless, having forgotten my money. "But here's a bangle," I said, slipping my one bit of jewellery off my arm. "You can have this for security. If you'll give me your card I'll send the money to-morrow, and I'll trust you to send back the bangle."

I held it out to him: a thin band of gold with a four-leaved shamrock made of emeralds—a present from Tony, which he had implored me to keep in memory of our "friendship".

The chauffeur hesitated, evidently asking himself whether or no I might be trusted without the security. As he turned the bangle over in his hand, and the question in his mind, I heard quick steps coming along the dark street, and looking up, the taxi lights showed me Eagle March's face. He was far more surprised than I was, because it had already occurred to me that he might cool his brain with a solitary stroll in the night.

"Oh, Eagle!" I exclaimed, giving him hardly time to be sure of recognition. "How thankful I am that you appeared just at the right minute. I've come to see you about something very important, and I haven't a penny."

No doubt Eagle was astonished that I should be arriving alone, cloakless, at half-past eleven or later to call upon him; but after the first look of amazement at sight of me, he concealed his feelings. For a second—no longer—he hesitated. Then he said, smiling, "I have plenty of pennies! Don't you think I'd better get into your taxi with you, and drive round for a few minutes rather than you should—have the trouble of coming into my place?"

"The driver has an engagement," I said. "And, anyhow, I must come in. It's really serious, Eagle."

He argued no more, though he looked somewhat troubled for my sake. I understood very well his state of mind. He paid and tipped the chauffeur, who handed back my bangle and darted off.

"Were you going to give the fellow that?" Eagle asked, nodding at the gold band. "Then it must indeed be serious. I once heard you say at El Paso that it was your most valued possession!"

"Fancy your remembering!" I said.

"I remember lots of things concerning you," he answered, as he guided me into the big, dignified building whose lights were lowered like most of London's illuminations in these Zeppelin-haunted times.

"Wish the bangle on for me," I said hastily, at the foot of the stairs, which we were to ascend rather than expose my uncovered shoulders to the scandalized eyes of the man in the lift.

"Would Dalziel approve?" he asked, smiling, as I thrust the bangle into his hand. "You showed it to me in Texas as a 'filopena present' from Tony."

"You remember that, too? This is the one thing I've kept to remind me of poor Tony."

"Poor Tony, indeed, if you've sent him about his business."

Eagle slipped the bangle over my hand, looking straight at me, as though wondering not only why I had come, but why I was so pale and strange.

"Wish that my errand here to-night may end in the greatest and most glorious success," I prompted him.

He held my wrist for a second or two, wishing silently. Then he dropped it rather abruptly, and we went upstairs to the first floor, where were the chambers lent to Eagle by his friend. I felt somehow that, by asking him for such a wish, I had impressed him with the real importance of my night visit.

He unlocked the door of the flat with a latch-key and almost pushed me in, as if fearing that I might be seen and perhaps recognized by some passing occupant of the house. Switching on the electricity, the vestibule was lit by a red-shaded light, cheerfully welcoming. Off it opened two or three rooms, and Eagle ushered me into a large oak-panelled study, lined with bookshelves and having long windows, which, when uncurtained, would look out on the Embankment. Now they were draped with crimson velvet, the sort of hangings that normal men with no female belongings invariably choose. By the door stood a tall folding screen, covered with red satin and oriental embroidery. There were bronzes and a few marble busts on top of the low bookshelves; on the oak panelling, here and there, hung a huge Chinese plate, here and there a sporting picture. With one glance I took in the whole interior, and saw that it was thoroughly masculine. In a large fireplace some logs of wood, evidently not long ago ignited, were crackling. Suddenly aware that I was very cold, I walked across the room and—shivering—held out my hands to the blaze. But I still kept the khaki coat hanging over my arm.

"Poor child, you look frozen!" said Eagle. "Why didn't you put on your coat?"

I laughed—a nervous, excited laugh. "My coat!" I echoed. "Look at it!"

So saying, I stretched out my arm to display the garment, and Eagle saw what it was.

"Khaki uniform!" he exclaimed. "From the U. S. A. By Jove! Is it Tony Dalziel's?"

"Indeed it is not," I returned. "I'm here to tell you about it. Oh, Eagle, what should I have done if you hadn't come home?"

"You oughtn't to be here, dear Peggy," he said. "And I'm not sure that I ought to have brought you in, but I've got into the habit of trusting you when you tell me that a thing's important."

"It is important," I cut him short. "So important I hardly know where to begin."

"Your wits are too quick for you to be in doubt long," Eagle flattered me, smiling; "and you must begin at once, dear child, because for the sake of all the conventionalities I can't let you make me a long call, good as it is to see you here. We are alone in the place now, so it's all right for the moment. The servant my friend Jim White lends me with the rooms doesn't stay at night. He lights the fire and puts everything shipshape, and then leaves me in peace till morning. But Jim himself, who is doing interpreter's work in France, has run back for the day on business. He is with some War Office chaps for the evening, but any time after twelve o'clock I expect him back to stay the night. You must be gone before then, so you see we have twenty minutes at most."

"Rome was saved in one minute, I've always heard," I said. "Eagle, this coat was Sidney Vandyke's. It's mine now, because Diana gave it to me, with a lot of other things they cared nothing about, for our Belgian men. They didn't know God was delivering them into my hands—and your hands. For I give this to you to do with as you will. It is the coat Major Vandyke wore the night at El Paso when he was in temporary command. He wore it when his orderly, Johnson, brought him the message you wrote on a leaf out of your notebook—the message he swore never reached him."

As I spoke I held out the coat in both hands, with the inside toward Eagle, so that he could see for himself the hole I had made in the lining, and perhaps draw his own conclusions. I saw his eyes fix themselves on the long, tell-tale slit and the colour rush up to his forehead.

"Who tore that slit in the lining?" he asked sharply.

"I tore it to-night!"

"Peggy!... You found something?"

"Yes! It had slipped through a ripped place down between the cloth and the lining."

"Good God! The message?"

"The message! Here it is." And from the bosom of my low dress I pulled the folded bit of khaki-yellow paper, warm from my heart. He took it from me. Our fingers touched, and his were cold as ice.

I stood still while he opened the paper and read the words which were of as great importance in his life now as when he wrote them. They had power to make all the difference to him and to another man between honour and dishonour.

For a long minute he was silent and motionless, reading or thinking. Then he looked up abruptly, and his eyes blazed into mine.

"Peggy!" he said in a level, monotonous tone which I knew hid deep feeling. "Do you realize what this means to me?"

"Yes," I answered. "I realize fully. I've dreamed of a moment like this for you. I've lived for it, for weeks and months that seem like years."

"And that it should come to me from you!"

"I hoped—I prayed."

"Tell me what happened."

I told him, only leaving out the part about Diana, how she had come home and guessed the secret I had found and tried to rob me. To mention that, I thought, might seem as if I were trying to boast of what I had done. Then, when I had explained how I dashed out of the house, leaving everything but the coat, which would be invaluable as proof, I hurried on, lest he should ask questions I didn't wish to answer.

"What has become of the notebook?" I wanted to know. "I hope you've got it?"

"Better than that," Eagle said. "If I'd had it in my possession all this time I might have written this message whenever I chose, torn out the leaf, and pretended that it had been done on the night of the gunfiring. Luckily Dell, the friend who defended me in my trial, kept the book. It was produced at the court-martial in my defence, and the torn edge shown, with the marks on the next page made by pressing down heavily with a blunt pencil. Vague traces of words could be seen, but even with a magnifying glass they couldn't be read. There was no evidence that amounted to anything, but my friend kept the book. He said it might be of use some day. I had no such hope, but now—my God, Peggy, with that coat and your story, the case against Vandyke seems to me complete!"

"How thankful I am to hear you say that!" I almost sobbed, moved by his excitement to greater excitement of my own. "I felt it must be so; but I'm only a girl. I didn't know. I couldn't be sure. Oh, Eagle! You'll never understand what it is to me to think I've been able to help you, even a little. If it hadn't been for me the dreadful thing would never have happened. You'd still be just what you were before we met."

"You've not helped me a 'little'; you've given me new life," he said. "Some time I'll tell you, maybe, why I'd rather have the gift from you than any one else. But I can't understand what you mean by saying 'the thing would never have happened' if it hadn't been for you."

"If I hadn't wanted a new dress, and if I hadn't gone to Wardour Street to sell my lace and make money to buy the frock, we should never have known each other. You wouldn't have seen Diana; we shouldn't have gone to America, and if we hadn't gone to America, and met Major Vandyke, those guns would never have been fired, and heaps of official bother would have been saved. But far the best of all, you would have been as happy as ever!'"

"You might as well blame yourself for being born," said Eagle; "and on my soul, I tell you, Peggy, that even without the new hope you've given me to-night, I wouldn't go back if I could choose, and be without my experience in Belgium, or—or without you in my life."

He held out his hands for mine, and I gave them to a grasp that hurt. Something he was about to say; but before he had time to speak there came a long shrill peal of the electric bell.

Eagle dropped my hands instantly. "By Jove! It must be Jim. He's forgotten his key! I don't want him to see you, Peggy. He's a very good fellow, but a rattle-brain—tells everything he knows. Run behind that red screen, and when I've got him into his own room, which I'll do somehow in a few minutes, I'll take you to a taxi, and drive home with you if it can be managed."

I whisked behind the screen, peeping out to whisper: "Better hide the khaki coat if you don't want questions!"

Eagle took my advice, handing me the coat to keep for him as he passed on his way to the door. There was plenty of room to stand behind the screen without flattening myself against the wall. And without danger of being seen I could look through the interstices between the leaves of the screen into the brightly lighted room.

I heard Eagle's footsteps on the parquet floor of the vestibule. I heard the click of the latch as he opened the door. After that, instead of a loud, jolly greeting from his friend, there was dead silence for an instant. Then a woman's voice spoke in a low tone of intense and passionate eagerness. I had never heard it speak in that tone before. But with a shock of surprise and fear, I recognized the voice: it was Diana's.



CHAPTER XXV

My heart stood still. Thinking calmly, it seemed that Diana had no power to harm Eagle March. I had the coat which betrayed Sidney. Eagle had the written message, and his friend in America had the notebook out of which it had been torn. The chain of our evidence was complete. It could not be broken. Eagle had long ago seen through Diana and ceased to worship her. Surely she could do nothing with him now, no matter how shamefully she might humble herself. But I could not think calmly. And as I heard her sweet, imploring voice, begging to come in, as I realized that Eagle could not shut her out, a heavy presentiment of failure weighed upon me. I braced myself to be ready for anything that might happen, ready to spring from behind the screen and confront Diana if need came.

"If you ever cared for me, if you have any pity for an unhappy woman, let me in—let me speak to you," were the words I heard her say, in a voice like the wail of harp-strings. Its pathos would have been irresistible to any man, even if he had never loved her. Eagle March let Diana come in, though I heard him protesting that his friend Jim White might arrive at any moment.

"What does it matter?" she cried; and with the words she was at the study door. Through the leaves of the tall screen I saw her trail in, a figure of beauty in her white satin dress and sombre purple cloak, her dark hair wreathed with a fillet of emerald laurel leaves that gave her face the look of some tragic muse of long ago. "I know Jim White," she hurried on, "and he knows me well enough to be sure I'm here for nothing wrong! I'm not afraid of him. It's you I'm afraid of, Eagle!"

She stopped, and faced him. Unknowingly she faced me, too. Eagle's back was turned toward me, but I could see Diana's blue eyes gazing up at him. They were sad and beautiful beyond words. With a shiver of fear, I realized that no woman on earth could be lovelier than my sister. All womanhood, with its appeal to man, was in her great imploring eyes.

I was glad that Eagle did not answer. I hoped his silence might mean that her beauty had lost its magic for him, that he understood fully how she had come to beguile him, and that he meant to give her no opening.

"This is the first time I have seen you since—since that night at Alvarado when you bade me 'good-bye,'" she went on, letting her voice break into a half-stifled sob.

"You saw me at the Embassy," he answered, so coldly that, in her place, I should have been chilled with discouragement.

"I dared not look at you there," she confessed. "I was afraid of—myself. Oh, Eagle! I'm even more afraid of you now—more afraid than of myself!"

"Really, I am not so very formidable, Lady Diana," said Eagle, with cool scorn that showed in tone and manner. "But if I may ask—since you stand in such dread of me, why do you come to beard the lion in his den?"

"Because the lion is brave and kingly I have ventured. I had to come, Eagle. There was no other way. I found out your address from your Russian friend, Major Skobeleff. He happened to mention it, asking me if I knew Jim White who'd lent the place to you. I didn't guess then how thankful I'd soon be to know where you lived. Oh, Eagle! Don't look at me so cruelly! I can't bear it. You hate me, but you mustn't judge. If you knew everything, you'd see that you'd done me a wrong."

"I should be sorry to think that," said Eagle, as formally as if he spoke to a stranger. "And you are mistaken if you really suppose I hate you. I have gone through a good deal lately, Lady Diana, and learned to see personal things in the right proportion. Let me assure you, my feelings toward you are not in the least malevolent."

"You mean you don't care for me any more? I ought to be glad, for your sake and mine, too. But I did love you, Eagle. I truly did, only—I was a coward. I was deceived, as other people were deceived. And I had Father to think of as well as myself."

"Don't excuse yourself to me, I beg! All that is past and done with. You didn't come here I'm sure to——"

"Ah! If the past could be done with! It can't, and that is why I have come. I know Peggy has been with you. It's useless to tell me she has not."

"I've no intention of telling you a lie, Lady Diana."

Di broke down, and cried without any effort to restrain herself. She did not look quite her beautiful self when she cried, but she looked a hundred times more pathetic. "You won't believe me, I suppose," she sobbed, "but till to-night I never knew—knew that Sidney had deceived me. I believed what he told me to believe. It is an awful blow! I think—my heart is broken. But, oh, God, Eagle, if you ruin him before the world it will be my death!"

To my astonishment Eagle answered with a laugh—a laugh of exceeding bitterness.

"You seem to believe and disbelieve easily, Lady Diana Vandyke!" he said. "Once you believed in me. Then you ceased to believe in me and threw me over because another man—a richer man than I—told you and everybody else that I was a liar. You believed in him instead—on his mere word. You married him. May I ask if he has confessed to you, or do you take his guilt for granted as you took mine, on circumstantial evidence?"

"No, he has not confessed anything," Di answered. Yet there was something in her tone and confused, anxious manner that made me sure she was not telling the truth. The conviction swept over me that something had happened at the house in Park Lane since I slammed the front door and ran out. Diana might have thought twice before coming to grovel here to Eagle, unless she had been sure that I was not jumping to conclusions—sure that there could be no possible mistake about what I had found in Sidney's coat. Suddenly I knew as well as if she had put the story into words that Sidney had come home before she had made up her mind what to do; that she had told him about the coat, and that I had carried it off to Eagle March; that Sidney, knowing well what my discovery must have been, had broken down and sent Diana to Eagle, in the one last hope that her pleading might save him from his enemy's revenge.

"I haven't seen Sidney," she hurried on. "But—instinct tells me some things. I'm afraid—I know that his loving me so much made him cruel to you. Oh, don't look at me like that. You turn me to ice. It's true—'cruel' isn't a hard enough word for what he did. I don't try to excuse him. But he sinned for my sake. That softens my heart toward him. I'm human!"

"I'm not inhuman, I trust," said Eagle, "but it doesn't soften my heart toward him."

"I don't ask that," Diana wept. "All I ask is your forgiveness for me—that you soften your heart for me!"

"I forgive you freely, Lady Diana," Eagle answered, "for any injury you may have done me in the past, for I have lived it down. The injury Vandyke did me, I thought—till to-night—I could never live down. But thanks to the most loyal friend a man ever had I've been given my chance."

Diana flung up her head, and there were no tears in her eyes. "Peggy a loyal friend!" she cried. "She's a traitor to Father and me when she betrays Sidney. What right has she to be loyal to you at our expense? And it isn't loyalty, not what you mean by loyalty. She has always hated Sidney for your sake, and now she can calmly see him ruined, not because of any wish for justice, but simply because she's desperately, idiotically in love with you; because she'd do anything—no matter how cruel to others—in the hope of winning you for herself. Now you know the real truth about Peggy."

"I wish I could think it were the real truth," said Eagle very quietly and very slowly. "To have Peggy's love would be the best thing in the world. I've realized that for some time now—while I was under arrest before my court-martial and had plenty of time to think. That was the time it was borne in on me, Lady Diana, just how much difference there is between you and Peggy."

Diana stood speechless, staring at him.

I was afraid the two out there might hear my heartbeats, they sounded so loudly in my own ears.

"I realized how foolish I'd been, not to see that difference before," Eagle went on, still speaking with a deliberate distinctness, as if he were willing I should catch every word.

That he should be saying such things to Diana was so wonderful, so almost incredible, that I asked myself if he were saying them only to save my pride because Di had snatched my love for him out of hiding and trailed it in the dust at his feet. "I ought to have loved Peggy almost as much as I love her now, the very day we met first. I ought to have felt she was the one woman—the one thing in the world for me. But she looked such a child! It would have seemed like sacrilege to love her as a man loves a woman—that little sprite of a creature. And then I met you. You dazzled me, Lady Diana. That's the word for it. I think no other would fit. But I didn't know I was only dazzled, till you took the light away. As soon as the bright spots faded from before my eyes, as bright spots do at last when you've been staring at the sun, I saw things as they really were. I saw what my feeling for you was worth, and what my feeling for Peggy might grow to be. But I tried not to let it grow. I'd suffered enough. I was down and out, and if I wasn't worthy of you, still less was I worthy of Peggy. Besides, I thought she was engaged to Dalziel, and I wanted to be glad for her. He's a good fellow. Then we were thrown together in Belgium, she and I; and if I hadn't loved her before, I should have begun to love her then, as a man loves just one girl in his life. Whatever I have done since—the few small things I have been able to do—have all been with the thought of her in my heart as a lodestar. So now you will understand, Lady Diana, how little impression you can make upon me by calling your sister a traitor."

"You say all this to hurt me!" Diana cried out. "But you did care for me once, Eagle. Do not forget that!"

"I forget nothing," he said. "But the time you speak of seems a long time ago, I care so much more for Peggy now. Just how much I care for her, I am going to prove to you in a moment."

For a second he paused, while Di waited, not knowing what to say; and it seemed as if I were waiting, too; my heart and breath stopped for his next words.

"If I had ever loved you as dearly as I once thought I did," he went on, sadness in his voice, "I suppose I could have refused you nothing when you came to me to-night. But—I don't defend myself—I only confess to the hardness in me; you haven't moved me at all. You were cruel as the grave to me. I could be cruel in return to you. That is, I could act as I thought right and be indifferent to the effect on you. Your husband did his best to ruin me. Virtually, he did ruin me. Even to-night he has lied again, the same old lie, to pull me down if he could from the miserable little height I've crawled up to, like a singed moth creeping out of the flame. Did you ever believe in his truth and my guilt—believe in the depths of your soul—if you have a soul? I doubt it! Anyhow, you helped his lies to-night, as often before; of that I have no doubt at all. I've no mercy for you in my heart, and none for Vandyke. I had none, even when I stopped the horses on your wedding day. I didn't do that from any softening of heart toward either of you. It was purely mechanical. I'd have done the same for a pair of thieves, I assure you. Nothing you could say to me for yourself, Lady Diana, would make me give up my revenge, or rather my justification, which—by his own fault—can't come to me without Vandyke's ruin. But something you have said about Peggy has made all the difference."

"About Peggy? What do you mean?" Di faltered.

"You said that she was a 'traitor to her people' for my sake. Now, because I love her, I can't let her be that. I won't profit by her loyalty to me—at your expense. And I won't have the world say in speaking of her, 'There's Lady Peggy O'Malley, who bore witness against her brother-in-law and ruined him.' For myself, I believe it wouldn't give me a qualm if Vandyke blew out his brains to-morrow, but you have made me realize that I couldn't bear it for her sake. Thank you for that, Lady Diana. Here is the paper which Peggy found inside the lining of your husband's coat, and brought to me. Because of Peggy and my love for her, take it and do with it as you choose."

Diana gave a little joyous shriek, but my cry of despair mingled with it. I pushed back the screen so that it tottered and fell with a crash, as I flew out in time to seize Eagle's hand with the paper in it.

"No!" I gasped. "Don't let me have lived for nothing, Eagle! I would gladly have given my life to get this bit of paper for you. I shall die of grief if I'm not to help you after all."

Holding the written message firmly in one hand, he laid the other over mine.

"You heard all I said?" he asked. "I am glad. I meant you to hear it in your sister's presence. Yet, though you heard, you speak of not helping me, Peggy? What she said isn't true, then? It isn't true that you love me?"

"It is true, and you know it only too well," I answered, hardly remembering that Diana listened, hanging anxiously on every word as on a verdict for life or death. "I worship you, Eagle; and that's why I don't care to live if you are not saved. The great chance has come, when we least expected it, and if you don't take it now it's in your hand——"

"It seems to me that my way of taking the great chance is after all the only way, if we are to be happy. Peggy, I find that I love you too much to take any other way. Can you love me as I am, love me enough to say: 'Do what is right for you?'"

"It is right for you to have justice!" I pleaded with him.

"I would rather have love."

"You can have both!"

"No. It doesn't seem so to me."

"Oh, you are obstinate—obstinate!"

"Perhaps! I'm afraid I always was. But I love you. I've suffered, and now I want to be happy and at peace. It isn't only for your sake. It's for mine as well. Great love is worthy of the only great revenge. Shall I burn the paper?"

"For God's sake, say yes, Peggy!" I heard Diana sob. But I hardly listened. If she said more, I did not hear it. I was looking at Eagle.

"Does silence give consent?" he asked. There was a new light in his eyes, brighter and clearer than the careless light of youth that was lost. I could not quench it. So I bowed my head and let the khaki coat, which half unconsciously I had been holding all the time, drop to the floor. The glory of Eagle's smile repaid me. He took my hand in his, and leading me, walked to the fireplace. There he stooped, and without hesitation dropped the paper, which might have changed his whole life, into the flames.

"Good-bye to the past!" he cried. "Hail to the future! Peggy, such as it is, such as it can be for me now, will you share it?"

"You know!" I whispered.

He pressed my hand tightly, then turned to Diana.

"You had better go home to your husband," he said. "You can sleep in peace to-night, and all nights. Presently I shall take Peggy to Hampstead; but I want her to myself for a moment first."

Without a word to either of us, Diana obeyed, her head bent low. I suppose she could find nothing to say, since "Thank you" would be commonplace: and Di is never commonplace.

I heard Eagle open the door for her, and shut it behind the trailing white satin and purple brocade. Then he came back to me and held out his arms.

I had been in the sky with him before, but this was heaven.

* * * * *

He is at the front now, and has been for a long time, but whatever may happen, neither life nor death can part our souls. The sacrifice he made was for my sake, and for the sake of love. So you see why, changing only our names, I have written this bit of secret history and told the truth about Eagle March and Monsieur Mars.

THE END