Jane's eyes sparkled and her cheeks flushed with an incredulous joy. Anna's breath came quickly. What a fairy prince of a brother this was!

"But, Robert, we had better not make much difference in our way of living at first, had we?" Anna said, timidly, calling to mind the instances in fiction of imprudent persons who had launched out wildly on an accession of fortune and then been overtaken by ruin.

"Well, I don't suppose you are either of you likely to want to cut a big dash," he said with another loud laugh. "At least, I don't see you doing it."

"It is a great responsibility," Anna said timidly. "I hope we shall use it the right way."

"Right way!" said Pateley. "Of course you will. Go to the play with it, get yourself a fur cloak, have a fire in your bedroom——"

"Oh!" said Jane.

"But, Robert," Anna said, "I don't feel it is sent to us for that."

"Sent!" said Pateley. "Well, that is one way of putting it."

But he did not enlarge upon the point. He accepted his sisters just as they were, with their limitations, their principles, and everything. He was not particularly susceptible to beauty and distinction, in the sense of these qualities being necessary to his belongings, and perhaps it was as well. Anna and Jane, though they looked undeniably like gentlewomen, had nothing else about them that was particularly agreeable to look upon. Nor were they either of them very strikingly ugly, or, indeed, strikingly anything. Jane was the better looking of the two. It was, perhaps, a rather heartless freak of destiny that life should have ordained her to live with somebody who was like a parody of herself, older, rounder, thicker, plainer. Living apart they might each have passed muster; living together they somehow made their ugliness, like their income, go further. But in the composite photograph it was Anna who predominated. It was a pity, for she was the stumpier of the two.

Long and earnest were the discussions the little sisters had that night after their splendid brother had departed, until by the time they went to bed they were prepared, or so it seemed to them, to launch their existence on a dizzy career of extravagance. They were going, as they expressed it, to put their establishment on another footing, which meant that instead of being attended by an inexperienced young person of eighteen they were to have an arrogant one of twenty-five. Their own elderly servant had declined to face the temptations of London, and had remained behind, living close to their old home. And, greatest event of all, they had at length—it was now summer, but that didn't matter, furs were cheaper—yielded to the thought which they had been alternately caressing and dismissing for months, and they were each going to buy a Fur Cloak. The days in which this all important purchase was being considered were to the Miss Pateleys days of pure enjoyment. Days of walks along Oxford Street, no longer so bewildered by the noise of London traffic, the discovery of some shop in an out of the way place whose wares were about half the price of the more fashionable quarters. The days were full of glorious possibilities.

It was two days after that evening visit of Pateley's to his sisters, which had so gilded and transformed their existence, that sinister rumours began to float over London, bringing deadly anxiety in their wake. Telegrams kept pouring in, and were posted all over the town, becoming more and more serious as the day went on: "Disturbances in South Africa. Hostile encounter between English and Germans. Cape to Cairo Railway stopped. Collapse of the 'Equator, Ltd.,'" until by nightfall the whole of England knew the pitifully unimportant incidents from which such tragic consequences were springing—that a group of travelling missionaries, halting unawares on German territory and chanting their evening hymns, had been disturbed by a rough fellow who came jeering into their midst, that one of the devout group had finally ejected him, with such force that he had rolled over with his head on a stone and died then and there; and that the Germans were insisting upon having vengeance. As for the "Equator, Ltd.," nobody knew exactly in what the collapse consisted. The wildest reports were circulated respecting it; one saying that it was in the hands of the Germans, another that they had destroyed the plant that was ready to work it, another again, and it was the one that gained the most credence, that there was no gold in the mine at all, and that the whole thing was a swindle. The offices of the "Equator" were closed for the night. They would probably be besieged the next morning by an angry crowd eager to sell out, but the shares would now be hardly worth the paper they were written upon. Pateley, in a frenzy of anxiety, in whichever direction he looked—for his sisters, for himself, for his party, for the Cape to Cairo Railway—spent the night at his office to see which way events were going to turn. In his unreasoning anger, as the day of misfortune dawned next morning, against destiny, against the far-away unknown missionaries, against all the adverse forces that were standing in the way of his wishes, there was one concrete figure in the foreground upon whom he could justifiably pour out his wrath: Sir William Gore, the Chairman of the "Equator," who, in the public opinion, was responsible for the undertaking. He would go to see Sir William that very day as soon as it was possible. In the meantime he would go round to his sisters to try to prepare them for the unfavourable turn that their circumstances after all might possibly take. As, sorely troubled at what he had to say, he came up into their little sitting-room, he found it bright with flowers; the fragrance of sweet peas filled the air. Anna, who had longed for flowers all her life and had welcomed with tremulous gratitude the rare opportunities that had come in her way of receiving any, had suddenly realised that it might not be sinful to buy them. The joy that she had in the handful bought from a street vendor was cheap, after all, at the price that might have seemed exorbitant if it had been spent on the flowers alone.

"Robert," said Jane, almost before he was inside the room, "guess what we are going to do?"

"Something very naughty, I'm afraid," Anna said, excited and shy at the same time. She was generally less able than Jane to overcome the awe that they both felt of a relation so great and so beneficent, so altogether perfect, as their brother Robert, but at this moment she was intoxicated by the possession of wealth, by the sense of luxury, of well-being, by that fragrance of the spirit her imagination added to the fragrance of the flowers that stood near her. "We're each going to buy a fur cloak like that, look!" And she held out to him proudly the picture in the inside cover of the Realm of Fashion, representing a tall, slender, undulating lady, about as unlike herself as could well have been imagined, wrapped in a beautiful clinging garment of which the lining, turned back, displayed an exquisite fur. Pateley, as we have said, was not as a rule given to an excess of sensibility. He did not ridicule sentiment in others, but neither did he share it; that point of view was simply not visible to him. Suddenly, however, on this evening he had a moment of what felt to himself a most inconvenient access of emotion. There was a plain and obvious pathos in this particular situation that it needed no very fine sensibilities to grasp, in the sight of his sister, her small, thickset little figure encased in her ugly little gown, looking up appealingly to him over her spectacles with the joy of a child in the toy she was going to buy. It was probably the first, the very first time in her life, that she had had that particular experience. Added to the joy of getting the thing she coveted was the sense of having looked a conscientious scruple in the face, and seen it fly before her like an evil spirit before a spell. She had routed the enemy, pushed aside the obstacle in front of her, and, excited, and flushed with victory, was looking round on a bigger world and a fairer view. Pateley, to his own surprise, found himself absolutely incapable of putting into words what he had come to say, not a thing that often happened to him. In wonder at his not answering at once, Anna, misinterpreting his very slight pause, caught herself up quickly and said anxiously—

"That is what you suggested, isn't it, Robert? You are quite sure you approve of it?"

"Yes, yes, I approve," he said heartily, recovering himself. "Of course. Go ahead."

"You must not think," she went on, reassured, "that we mean to spend all our money in things like this, but of course a fur cloak is useful; it is a possession, isn't it? and it is, after all, one's duty to keep one's health."

"Of course it is," Pateley said. "No need of any further argument."

"I am so glad," she said, "so glad you approve!" and she smiled again with delight.

Again Pateley felt an unreasoning fury rising in his mind that people who were so easily satisfied should not be allowed to have their heart's desire. Perhaps after all, it was not true about the "Equator"; perhaps things might be better than they seemed. At any rate, he would not say anything to his sisters until he had seen Gore. And with some hurried explanation of the number of engagements that obliged him to leave them, he strode out.



CHAPTER XII

In the meantime Lord Stamfordham, watching the situation, felt there was not a single instant to lose. There is one moment in the life of a conflagration when it can be stamped out: that moment passed, no power can stop it. Stamfordham, his head clear, his determination strong and ready, resolved to act without hesitating on his own responsibility. He sent a letter round to Prince Bergowitz, the German Ambassador, begging him to come and see him. Prince Bergowitz was laid up with an attack of gout which unfortunately prevented his coming, but he would be glad to receive Lord Stamfordham if he would come to see him.

It was a little later in the same day that Rendel, alone in his study, was standing, newspaper in hand, in front of the map of Africa looking to see the exact localities where the events were happening which might have such dire consequences. At that moment Wentworth, passing through Cosmo Place, looked through the window and saw him thus engaged. He knocked at the hall door, and, after being admitted, walked into the study without waiting to be announced.

"Looking at the map of Africa, and I don't wonder," he said. "Isn't it awful?"

"It's terrible," said Rendel, "about as bad as it can be."

"Look here, why aren't you over there to help to settle it?" said Wentworth.

"Well, I should not have been there, in any case," said Rendel. "That is where I should have been—look," with something like a sigh.

"You would have been nearer than you are now," said Wentworth. "Upon my word, I haven't patience with you. The idea of throwing up such a chance as you have had!"

"How do you know about it?" Rendel said.

"How do I know?" said Wentworth. "Everybody knows that you were offered it and refused."

"After all," said Rendel, "there are some things one leaves undone in this world. It does not follow that because people are offered a thing they must necessarily accept it."

"I don't say I am not in favour of leaving things undone," Wentworth said, "on occasion."

"So I have observed," said Rendel.

"But really, you know," Wentworth went on, "this is too much. What do you intend to do?"

"What do I intend to do?" Rendel said, with a half smile, then unconsciously imparting a greater steadfastness into his expression, "broadly speaking, I intend to do—everything."

"Oh! well, there's hope for you still," Wentworth said, "if that is your intention. It's rather a large order, though."

"Well, as I have told you before," Rendel said, "I don't see why there should be any limit to one's intentions. The man who intends little is not likely to achieve much."

"That's all very well, and plausible enough, I dare say," said Wentworth, "but the way to achieve is not to begin by refusing all your chances."

"This is too delightful from you," said Rendel, "who never do anything at all."

"Not at all," said Wentworth. "It is on principle that I do nothing, in order to protest against other people doing too much. I wish to have an eight hours' day of elegant leisure, and to go about the world as an example of it. It would be just as inconsistent of me to accept a regular occupation as it is of you to refuse it."

"I have a very simple reason for refusing this," said Rendel more seriously, and he paused. "I am a married man."

"To be sure, my dear fellow," said Wentworth, "I have noticed it."

"My wife didn't want to go to Africa," said Rendel, "and there was an end of it."

"Oh, that was the end of it?" said Wentworth.

"Absolutely," said Rendel. "She did not want to leave her father."

"Ah, is that it?" said Wentworth, feeling that he could not decently advance an urgent plea against Sir William. "Poor old man! I know he's gone to pieces frightfully since his wife died—still, couldn't some one have been found to take care of him?"

"Hardly any one like Rachel," Rendel said.

"Naturally," said Wentworth.

"You know he is living with us?" Rendel said.

"Is he?" said Wentworth surprised. "Upon my word, Frank, you are a good son-in-law."

Rendel ignored the tone of Wentworth's last remark and said quite simply—

"Oh! well, there was nothing else to be done. He's been ill, you know, really rather bad; first he had a chill, and then influenza on the top of it. He's frightfully low altogether."

"But I rather wonder," said Wentworth, "as Mrs. Rendel had her father with her, that you didn't go to Africa without her. Wouldn't that have been possible?"

"No," said Rendel decidedly. "Quite impossible."

"I should have thought," said Wentworth, "that in these enlightened days a husband who could not do without his wife was rather a mistake."

"That may be," said Rendel. "But I think on the whole that the husband who can do without her is a greater mistake still."

"It is a great pity you were not born five hundred years ago," said Wentworth.

"I should have disliked it particularly," said Rendel. "I should have been fighting at Flodden, or Crecy, or somewhere, and I should have been too old to marry Rachel, even in these days of well-preserved centenarians. It is no good, Jack; I am afraid you must leave me to my folly."

"Well, well," said Wentworth, agreeing with the word, and thinking to himself that even the wisest of men looks foolish at times when he has the yoke of matrimony across his shoulders; "after all there is to be said—if we are going to have another war on our hands in Africa, which Heaven forfend, the time of the statesmen over there is hardly come yet."

At this moment the door opened and the two men turned round quickly as Rachel came in.

"Frank," said Rachel. "Should you mind——" Then she stopped as she saw Wentworth. "Oh, how do you do, Mr. Wentworth? I didn't know you were here. Don't let me interrupt you."

"On the contrary," said Wentworth, "it is I who am interrupting your husband."

"I only came to see, Frank, if you were very busy," she said.

"I am not at this moment. Do you want me to do anything?"

"Well, presently, would you play one game of chess with my father? I am not really good enough to be of much use; it doesn't amuse him to play with me."

"Yes," said Rendel. "I have just got one or two letters to write and then I'll come."

"I think it would really be better," said Rachel, "if he came in here. It is rather a change for him, you know, to come into a different room after having been in the house all day."

"Just as you like," said Rendel, without much enthusiasm, but also without any noticeable want of it.

"Well," said Wentworth, "I'm not going to keep you any longer, Frank. I just came in to—give you my views about things in general."

"Thank you," said Rendel, with a smile. "I am much beholden to you for them."

"Perhaps you would come up and see my father, Mr. Wentworth," said Rachel, "before you go away?"

"I shall be delighted," Wentworth said. His feeling towards Sir William Gore was kindly on the whole, and the kindliness was intensified at this moment by compassion, although he could not help resenting a little that Gore should have been an indirect cause of Rendel's refusing what Wentworth considered was the chance of his friend's life. He shook hands with Rendel and prepared to follow Rachel. At this moment a loud, double knock resounded upon the hall door with a peremptoriness which must have induced an unusual and startling rapidity in the movements of Thacker, Rendel's butler, for almost instantly afterwards he threw open the study door with a visible perturbation and excitement in his demeanour, saying—

"It's Lord Stamfordham, sir, who wants particularly to see you." And to Rendel's amazement Lord Stamfordham appeared in the doorway. He bowed to Wentworth, whom he knew slightly, and shook hands with Rachel. She then went straight out, followed by Wentworth. As the door closed behind them, Stamfordham, answering Rendel's look of inquiry and without waiting for any interchange of greetings, said hurriedly—

"Rendel, I want you to do me a service."

"Please command me," Rendel said quickly, looking straight at him. He felt his heart beat as Stamfordham paused, put his hat down on the table, took his pocket-book out of his breast pocket and a folded paper out of it.

"I want you," he said, "to transcribe some pencil notes of mine."

"You want me to transcribe them?" said Rendel, with an involuntary inflection of surprise in his tone.

"Yes, if you will," said Stamfordham. "The fact is, Marchmont, the only man I have had since you left me who can read my writing when I take rough pencil notes in a hurry, has collapsed just to-day, out of sheer excitement I believe, and because he sat up for one night writing."

"Poor fellow!" said Rendel, half to himself.

"Yes," said Stamfordham drily; and then he went on, as one who knows that he must leave the sick and wounded behind without waiting to pity them. "These," unfolding the paper, "are notes of a conversation that I have just had at the German Embassy with Bergowitz." Rendel's quick movement as he heard the name showed that he realised what that juxtaposition meant at such a moment. "Every moment is precious," Stamfordham went on, "and it suddenly dawned on me as I left the Embassy that you were close at hand and might be willing to do it."

The German Embassy was at the moment, during some building operations, occupying temporary premises near Belgrave Square.

"I should think so indeed," Rendel said eagerly.

"The notes are very short, as you see," said Stamfordham. "You know, of course, what has been happening. I needn't go into that." And as he spoke a boy passed under the windows crying the evening papers, and they distinctly heard "Panic on the Stock Exchange." The two men's eyes met.

"Yes, there is a panic on the Stock Exchange," Stamfordham said, "because every one thinks there will be war—but there probably won't."

"Not?" said Rendel. "Can it be stopped?"

Stamfordham answered him by unfolding the piece of paper and laying it down before him on the table. It was a map of Africa, roughly outlined, but still clearly enough to show unmistakably what it was intended to convey, for all down the map from north to south there was a thick line drawn to the west of the Cape to Cairo Railway—the latter being indicated, but more faintly, in pencil—starting at Alexandria and running down through the whole of the continent, bending slightly to the southward between Bechuanaland and Namaqualand, and ending at the Orange River. East of that line was written ENGLAND, west of it GERMANY, and below it some lines of almost illegible writing in pencil.

Rendel almost gasped.

"What?" he said; "a partition of Africa?"

"Yes," said Stamfordham. Then he said with a sort of half smile, "The partition, that is to say, so far as it is in our own hands. But," speaking rapidly, "I will just put you in possession of the facts of the case and give you the clue. We abandon to Germany everything that we have a claim to west of this line. It does not come to very much," in answer to an involuntary movement on Rendel's part; and he swept his hand across the coast of the Gulf of Guinea as though wiping out of existence the Gold Coast, Ashanti, Sierra Leone, and all that had mattered before. "Germany abandons to us everything that she lays claim to on the east of it, including therefore the whole course of the Cape to Cairo Railway."

"But has Germany agreed?" said Rendel, stupefied with surprise.

"Germany has agreed," said Stamfordham. "We have just heard from Berlin."

Rendel felt as if his breath were taken away by the rapid motion of the events.

"That means peace, then?" he said.

"Yes," Stamfordham said; "peace."

"Then when is this going to be given to the world?" said Rendel.

"Some of it possibly to-morrow," said Stamfordham. "The Cabinet Council will meet this evening, and the King's formal sanction obtained. Of course," he went on, "the broad outlines only will be published—the fact of the understanding at any rate, not necessarily the terms of the partition. But it is important for financial reasons that the country should know as soon as possible that war is averted."

"Of course, of course," said Rendel. "Immeasurably important."

Stamfordham took up his hat and held out his hand with his air of courtly politeness as he turned towards the door.

"I may count upon you to do this for me immediately?"

"This instant," said Rendel, taking up the papers. "Shall I take them to your house as soon as they are done?"

"Please," said Stamfordham. "No, stay—I am going back to the German Embassy now, then probably to the Foreign Office. You had better simply send a messenger you can rely upon, and tell him to wait at my house to give them into my own hand, as I am not sure where I shall be for the next hour. Rendel, I must ask you by all you hold sacred to take care of those papers. If that map were to be caught sight of before the time——"

Rendel involuntarily held it tighter at the thought of such a catastrophe.

"Good Heavens!—yes," he said. "But that shan't happen. Look," and he dropped the paper through the slit in the closed revolving corner of his large writing-table, a cover that was solidly locked with his own key so that, though papers could be put in through the slit, it was impossible to take them out again without unlocking the cover and lifting it up. "This is the only key," he said, showing his bunch. "Now then, they are perfectly safe while I go across the hall with you."

Stamfordham nodded.

"By the way," he said, pausing, "you are married now, Rendel...."

"I am, yes, I am glad to say," Rendel replied.

"To be sure," said Stamfordham, with a little bow conveying discreet congratulation. "But—remember that a married man sometimes tells secrets to his wife."

"Does he, sir?" said Rendel, with an air of assumed innocence.

"I believe I have heard so," said Stamfordham.

"On the other hand," said Rendel, "I also have heard that a married man sometimes keeps secrets from his wife."

"Oh well, that is better," said Stamfordham.

"From some points of view, perhaps," said Rendel. Then he added more seriously, "You may be quite sure, sir, that no one—no one—in this house shall know about those papers. I would give you my word of honour, but I don't suppose it would make my assertion any stronger."

"If you said nothing," said Stamfordham, "it would be enough;" and Rendel's heart glowed within him as their eyes met and the compact was ratified. "By the way, Rendel, there was one thing more I wanted to say to you. There will probably be a vacancy at Stoke Newton before long; aren't you going into the House?"

"Some time," said Rendel. "When I get a chance."

"Well, there is going to be a chance now," said Stamfordham. "Old Crawley is going to resign. I hear it from private sources; the world doesn't know it yet. It is a safe Imperialist seat, and in our part of the world."

"I should like very much to try," said Rendel, forcing himself to speak quietly.

"Suppose you write to our committee down there?" said Stamfordham. "That is, when you have done your more pressing business—I mean mine."

"That shall come before everything else," Rendel said. "I will do it at this moment."

He turned quickly back into his study after Stamfordham had left him, and unlocked and threw up the revolving cover of the writing-table hastily, for fear that something should have happened to the paper on which the destinies of the civilised world were hanging. There it was, safe in his keeping, his and nobody else's. He took it in his hand and for a moment walked up and down the room, unable to control himself, trying to realise the tremendous change in the aspect of his fortunes that had taken place in the last half-hour. Then he had seemed to himself in the backwater, out of the throng of existence. He had been trying to reconcile himself to the idea that he was "out of it," as he had put it to himself—left behind. And now he shared with the two great potentates of the world the knowledge of what was going to take place; it was his hand that should transcribe the words that had decided it; he was a witness, and so far the only one. Then with an effort he forced himself to be calm. Every minute was of importance. He sat down at the writing-table, took up the paper, and pored over it to try to disentangle the strange dots, scratches, and lines which, flowing from Stamfordham's pen, took the place of handwriting. Some ill-natured people said that Stamfordham was quite conscious of the advantage of having writing which could not be read without a close scrutiny. It was no doubt possible. However, having the clue to what the contents of the paper were, Rendel, to his immense relief, found that he could decipher it. As he was writing the first word of the fair copy the door of the study opened slowly, and Sir William Gore appeared on the threshold, a newspaper in his hand.



CHAPTER XIII

Sir William, who had not been able to come downstairs for a month, may be forgiven for unconsciously feeling that the occasion was one which demanded from his son-in-law a semblance of cordial welcome at any rate, if not of glad surprise. It is an extraordinarily difficult thing to learn that we are not looking each of us at the same aspect of life as our neighbour, especially our neighbour of a different time of life from ourselves. We appeal to him as a matter of course, and say, "Look! see how life appears to me to-day! see what existence is like in relation to myself!" But unfortunately the neighbour, who is standing on the outside of that particular circle, and not in its centre, does not see what we mean. Sir William had been shut up for a month in the room that he inhabited on the drawing-room floor of the house in Cosmo Place. He had simply not had mental energy to care about what was happening beyond the four walls of that room. If he had been asked at that moment what the universe was, he would have said that it was a succession of days and nights in which the important things of life were the hours and compositions of his meals, the probable hour of the doctor's visit, and the steps to be made each day towards recovery and the resumption of ordinary habits.

Rachel had of course devoted herself to him. It was she who went up with his breakfast, who read to him during the morning, who tried to remember everything that happened out of doors to tell him on her return; it was she who had done many hundreds of patiences in the days when he was not well enough to play at chess. He was hardly well enough now, but he had set his heart upon the first day when he should come down and play chess with Rendel as a sort of pivot in his miserable existence. And now the moment had come. How should he know that for all practical purposes his son-in-law was a different being from the young man who had come upstairs to see him the day before? For yesterday Rendel had come up and talked to him about indifferent things, not telling him, lest he should be excited, of the evil rumours that were filling the air, and had gone downstairs again himself with a miserably unoccupied day in front of him—a day in which to remember and overcome the fact that, instead of being in the arena of which the echoes reached him, he was doomed to be a spectator from afar, who could take no part in the fray. But so much Sir William had not known. How should we any of us know what the inward counterpart is to the outward manifestation? know that the person who comes into the room may be, although appearing the same, different from the one who went out? He knew only that the Rendel of this morning had said with a smile, "I am looking forward to the moment when you will checkmate me again." And Sir William had a right to expect that, that moment having come, Rendel should feel the importance and pleasure of it as much as he did himself. But it was not the same Rendel who sat there, it was not the unoccupied spectator ready to join his leisure to that of another; it was a resolute combatant who had been suddenly called into a front post, and for whom the whole aspect of the world had changed. It was an absolute physical effort to Rendel, as the door opened and he saw Sir William, to bring his mind back to the conditions of a few hours before. The fact of any one coming in at that moment called him back to earth again, turned him violently about to face the commonplace importunities of existence. Sir William had probably not formulated to himself what he had vaguely expected, but it certainly was not the puzzled, half-questioning look, the indescribable air of being taken aback, altered at once by a quick impulse into something that tried not to look forbidding, and more strange and tell-tale than all the quick movement by which Rendel drew a large sheet of blotting-paper over what he was writing. Sir William's whole being was jarred, his rejoicing in the small occasion of being on another stage towards recovery was gone; nobody cared, not one. Rachel was not in the house, and who else was there to care? Nobody: there never would be again. Could it be possible that for the rest of his life he was doomed to be in a world so arranged that his comings and goings were not the most important of all? He stood still a moment, then tried to speak in his usual voice.

"I am not in your way, am I, Rendel?"

Rendel also made a conscious effort as he replied, rising from his chair as he spoke—

"Oh no, Sir William, please come in. I have some writing to finish, if you don't mind."

"Pray go on," said Sir William; "I won't disturb you. I'll sit down here and read the paper till you are ready"; and he sat down with his back to the writing-table and the window, in the big chair which Rendel drew forward.

"Thank you," Sir William said. "I took the liberty of bringing in your afternoon paper which was outside."

"Certainly," Rendel replied, too absorbed for the moment in the thing his own attention was concentrated upon to realise the bearing of what Gore was saying. "Of course," and went back to his writing.

Gore leant back, idly turning over the pages of the Mayfair Gazette; then he started as his eye fell on the alarmist announcements. What was this? What incredible things were these that he saw? The letters were swimming before him; he could only vaguely distinguish the black capitals and the headlines; the rest was a blur. All that stood out clearly was: "Cape to Cairo Railway in Danger," and then beneath it: "Sinister Rumours about the 'Equator, Ltd.'"

"Rendel!" he said, half starting up. Rendel turned round with a start, dragging his mind from the thing it was bent upon. "How awful this is!" said Sir William, holding up the paper with a shaking hand. Rendel began to understand. But, that he should have to look up for one moment, for the fraction of a second, from those words that he was transcribing!

"Yes, yes, it is terrible," he said, and bent over his writing again. Sir William tried to go on reading. What was this about Germany? War would mean the collapse of everything—private schemes as well as all others.

"War! Do you think it can possibly mean war?" he said. "Can't Germany be squared?"

"War!" said Rendel without looking up. "Who can tell?" And again he felt the supreme excitement of standing unseen at the right hand of the man who was driving the ship through the storm. Sir William laid down the paper on his knee and tried to think, but all he could do was to close his eyes and keep perfectly still. Everything was vague ... and the worst of it—or was it the best of it?—was that nothing seemed to matter.

At the same moment a brief colloquy was being exchanged outside the hall door. Stamfordham's brougham had drawn up again, and Thacker, who was standing hanging about the hall with a secret intention of being on the spot if tremendous things were going to happen, had instantly rushed out.

"Is Mr. Rendel in?" said Lord Stamfordham hurriedly as Thacker stood at the door of the brougham.

"Yes, my lord."

"Ask him to come and speak to me."

Thacker was shaken into unwonted excitement; he opened the door of the study quickly and went in. Sir William started violently. Any sudden noise in the present state of his nerves threw him completely off his balance.

"Can you come and speak to Lord Stamfordham, sir?"

Rendel sprang up; then with a sudden thought turned back and pulled down the top of his writing-table, which shut with a spring, and rushed out without seeing that Sir William had begun raising himself laboriously from his chair as he said—

"Don't let me be in your way, Rendel."

"His lordship is not coming in, Sir William," said Thacker.

Sir William sank back into his chair. Thacker, after waiting an instant as though to see whether Gore had any orders for him, went quietly out, closing the door after him.

Rendel had madly caught up a hat as he passed, and flown down the steps, not seeing in his haste a burly personage who was coming along the pavement dressed in the ordinary garb of the English citizen, with nothing about him to show that his glowing right hand held the thunderbolts which he was going to hurl at the head of Gore. It is unnecessary to say that Robert Pateley knew Stamfordham's carriage well by sight; and it was with pleasure and satisfaction that he found that Providence had brought him on to the pavement at Cosmo Place in time to see one of the moves in the great game which the world was playing that day. It was better on the whole that he should not accost Rendel. There was no need at that moment for Stamfordham to be aware of his presence, although, after all, there was no reason why he should not be. But seeing Rendel standing speaking to Stamfordham at the door of the brougham he conceived that he was probably coming in again directly, and made up his mind to go in and see Gore at any rate if possible. He went up the steps, therefore, and into the house, the front door being open. It happened neither Rendel nor Stamfordham saw him enter, the former having his back turned and blocking the view of the latter. Thacker, with intense interest, was watching the development of affairs from the dining-room window, and did not see Pateley go in either.

"Have you done the thing?" said Stamfordham quickly.

"All but," Rendel said.

"Well, I want you to add this," said Stamfordham. "Get in and drive back with me, will you? I have so little time."

Rendel jumped in, and the brougham moved past the window just as Sir William Gore, who had painfully pulled himself out of his chair, looked out, petrified with surprise at the unexplained crisis that seemed to have come upon the household. "Stamfordham!" he said to himself, "and Frank! What are the Imperialists hatching now, I wonder?" and he mechanically looked round him at Rendel's writing-table. It was, however, closed and forbidding, save for a little corner of white paper that was sticking out under the revolving flap. By one of those strange, almost unconscious impulses which may suddenly overtake the best of us at times, Gore put out his hand and pulled out the paper. It was quite loose and came away in his hand. What was it? He looked at it vaguely. Then gradually it became clear. A map?... yes, it was a rough map, with a thick line drawn from the top to the bottom down the middle of it; names to the right and the left. England? Germany? And what were those words written underneath? What? Was that how Germany was going to be 'squared?' And sheer excitement gave him strength to grasp more or less the meaning of what he saw. If Africa were going to be divided, if Germany and England were agreeing to that division, it meant Peace. There was no doubt of it. But had the Imperialists suddenly gone on to the side of peace? Had they snatched that trump card from their adversaries and were they going to play it? Sir William stood gazing at the paper. Then as he heard some one at the door of the room he suddenly realised what he had done. He instinctively clutched the paper in the hand which held the Mayfair Gazette, the newspaper concealing it. As he turned and looked towards the door an unexpected sight greeted his eyes—no other than Pateley, who, finding himself in the hall unheralded, had made up his mind to come into Rendel's study and there ring the bell for some one who should bring word to Sir William Gore of his presence. But he was surprised to find Sir William downstairs instead of in his room as he had expected. He paused for a moment, shocked at the change in Gore's appearance. He looked thin, listless, bent: his upright figure, his spring, his energy were gone. Pateley's heart smote him for a moment. Would it be possible to call this feeble, suffering creature to account? Then his heart hardened again as he thought of his sisters.

"Pateley!" said Gore, advancing with the remains of his usual manner, but curiously shaken for the moment, as Pateley said to himself, out of his usual self-confidence.

The state of nervousness of the older man was painfully perceptible. Added to his general weakness, which made the mere fact of seeing some one unexpectedly a sudden shock to him, he had besides at that moment an additional and very definite reason for uneasiness in the thing which he held in his hand. He endeavoured, however, to pull himself together as he shook hands with Pateley.

"I have not seen you for a long time," he said, pointing to a chair and sinking back into his own.

"No," Pateley replied. "I was very sorry to hear that you had been ill. You are looking rather bad still."

"And feeling so," Sir William said wearily. "The worst of influenza is that one feels just as bad when one is supposed to be getting better as when one is supposed to be getting worse. It is a most annoying form of complaint."

"So I have understood," said Pateley, "though I have not learnt it by personal experience."

"No, you don't look as though you suffered from weakness," said Sir William, with a faint smile and a consciousness that this was not a person from whom it would be very easy to extract sympathy for his own condition.

Pateley paused. He felt curiously uncomfortable and hesitating, a sensation somewhat novel to him. Sir William leant back in his chair, trying to control the trembling of his hands, of which one held the Mayfair Gazette, the smaller paper still concealed underneath it.

"I see," Pateley said, "you are reading the evening paper. Not very good reading, is it? Things look pretty bad."

"They do indeed," said Sir William.

"It looks uncommonly like war with Germany," Pateley said; "prices are tumbling down headlong on the Stock Exchange. I believe there is going to be something very like a panic."

"Is there?" said Gore uneasily; "that's bad."

"Yes, it is very bad," Pateley went on. "I suppose you have heard that there are ugly rumours about the 'Equator.'"

"I saw something," Sir William said, forcing himself to speak. "What is it exactly that they say?"

"Well, the last thing they say," Pateley replied with a harder ring in his voice, "is that it is not a gold mine at all."

"What?" said Sir William, grasping the arms of his chair.

"And that the whole thing, therefore, is going to pieces with every penny invested in it."

"Is it—is it as bad as that?" said the other, tremulously. "No, no, it can't be. Surely it can't be."

"Do you mean to say you don't know?" said Pateley.

"I know nothing," said Sir William. "I have heard nothing about it, up to this moment."

"One can't help wondering," said Pateley, "that a man in your responsible position towards it," the words struck Sir William like a blow, "should not have known, should not have inquired——"

"I have been ill, you know," Sir William said nervously, "I have not been able to look into or understand anything. I have not been out of the house yet. I could not go to the City or do any business."

"Yes, I see that," said Pateley, "and I am sorry to be obliged to thrust a business discussion upon you now——"

Sir William looked up at him quickly, anxiously.

"But the fact is, at this moment the business won't wait. If you remember, when the 'Equator' Company was first started, I, like many others, invested in it, having asked your opinion of it first, and having heard from you that you were going to be the Chairman of the Board of Directors."

"I believed in it, you know," Sir William said, with eagerness; "I put a lot of money into it myself."

"I know you did, yes," said Pateley, "but you fortunately had a lot to do it with, and also a lot of money to keep out of it. Every one is not so happily situated. I blame myself, I need not say, acutely, as well as others." And as Sir William looked at him sitting there in his relentless strength, he felt that there was small mercy to be expected at his hands.

"I don't know," Sir William said, trying to speak with dignity, "that I was to blame. I believed in it, as others did."

"No doubt," Pateley said. "But I am afraid that will hardly be a satisfactory explanation for the shareholders. The shares at this moment are absolutely worthless."

"But what can I do?" said Sir William. "What would you have me do?"

"It seems to me there is a rather obvious thing to be done," said Pateley. "It is to help to make good the losses of the people who, through you, will be"—and he paused—"ruined."

"Ruined!" Sir William repeated, "No, no—it cannot be as bad as that. It is terrible," he muttered to himself. "It is terrible."

"Yes, it is terrible," said Pateley, "and even something uglier."

"But," Sir William said miserably, "I don't know that I can be blamed for it. Anderson, who is absolutely honest, reported on the thing, and believed in it to the extent of spending all he had in getting the rights to work it."

"That is possible," Pateley said, "but Anderson was not the chairman of the company. You are."

"Worse luck," Sir William said bitterly.

"Yes, worse luck," Pateley said. "Your name up to now has been an honourable one." Sir William started and looked at him again. "I am afraid," Pateley went on, "after this it may have," and he spoke as if weighing his words, "a different reputation."

Sir William cleared his throat and spoke with an effort.

"Pateley," he said, "you won't let that happen? You will make it clear...? You have influence in the Press——"

"I am afraid," Pateley said, "that my influence, such as it is, must on this occasion be exerted the other way. Of course there is a good deal at stake for me here," he went on, in a matter of fact tone which carried more conviction than an outburst of emotion would have done. "I care for my sisters, and I am afraid I can't sit down and see them—swindled, or something very like it."

"Not, swindled!" said Gore angrily.

"Well," Pateley said, "that is really what it looks like to the outsider, and that is what, as a matter of fact, it comes to."

"Heaven knows I would make it right if I could," said Sir William, "but how can I?"

"Well, of course, on occasions of this kind," Pateley said, still in the same everyday manner, as though judicially dealing with a fact which did not specially concern him, "it is sometimes done by the simple process of the person responsible for the losses making them good—making restitution, in fact."

"I have told you," said Sir William, "that I'm afraid that is impossible."

"Ah then, I am sorry," Pateley said, in the tone of one determining, as Sir William dimly felt, on some course of action. "I thought some possible course might have suggested itself to you."

"No, I can suggest nothing," Sir William said, leaning back in his chair, and feeling that neither mind nor body could respond at that moment to anything that called for fresh initiative.

"I thought that you might have other possibilities on the Stock Exchange even," said Pateley, "though I must say I don't see in what direction. There is bound to be a panic the moment war is declared."

There was a pause. Sir William lay back in his chair looking vaguely in front of him. Pateley sat waiting. Then Gore felt a strange flutter at his heart as the full bearing of Pateley's last sentence dawned upon him.

"Supposing," he said, trying to speak steadily, "there were no war?"

"That is hardly worth discussing," said Pateley briefly, as he got up. "War, I am afraid, is practically certain. Then do I understand, Sir William," he continued, "that you can do nothing to help me in this matter? If so, I am sorry. I had hoped I might have spared you some discomfort, but since you can do nothing——" He broke off and looked quickly out of the window, then said in explanation, "It is only a hansom stopping next door; I thought it might be Rendel coming back. But I was mistaken."

Sir William realised that every instant was precious.

"Pateley," he said, "look here. If you could wait a day or two longer...."

"Do you mean," said Pateley, "that if I were to wait there would be a chance of your being able to do something?"

"I don't know," said Sir William, "I am not sure, but there might be a turn in public affairs; the panic might be over, there might be a chance of peace."

"If that is all," Pateley said quite definitely, "I am afraid that prospect is not enough to build upon. I can't afford to wait on that security."

Sir William got up and spoke quickly with a visible effort.

"Look here, listen... I have a reason for thinking that is the way things may be turning."

"A reason?" said Pateley, turning round upon him.

"Yes," said Sir William.

"What is it?" said Pateley.

Sir William felt his courage failing him in the desperate game he had begun to play. It was no good pausing now. He stood facing Pateley, holding a folded paper in his hand, no longer hidden by the newspaper which had slid from his grasp on to the ground. He looked at the paper in his hand mechanically. Mechanically Pateley's eye followed his. The conviction suddenly came to him that Gore was not speaking at random.

"Sir William," he said, "time presses," and unconsciously they both looked towards the window into the street. At any moment Rendel might draw up again. "If you have any reason for what you are saying, tell me—if not, I must leave you to see what can be done."

"I have a reason," said Sir William, "the strongest, for believing that there will be peace."

Pateley looked at him. "Give me a proof?" he said, with the accent of a man who is wasting no words, no intentions.

Sir William's hand tightened over the paper. "If I gave you a proof," he said, "would you swear not to take any proceedings against the 'Equator' Company?"

"If you gave me a proof, yes—I would swear," said Pateley.

"And you will keep the things out of the papers," Sir William went on hurriedly, "till I have had time to see my way?"

"Yes," said Pateley again.

"And my name shall not appear in the matter?"

"No—no," Pateley said, in spite of himself breathlessly and hurriedly, more excited than he wished to show. Sir William paused and looked towards the window. "All right," said Pateley, "you have time. Quick! What is it?"

"There is going," Sir William said, "I am almost certain, to be an understanding, an agreement between England and Germany about this business in Africa."

"Impossible!" said Pateley.

"Yes," said Sir William, hardly audibly.

"Give me the proof," Pateley said, coming close to him and in his excitement making a movement as though to take the paper out of Gore's hand.

"Wait, wait!" Sir William said. "No, you mustn't do that!" and he staggered and leant back against the chimneypiece. Pateley had no time to waste in sympathy.

"Look here, if you don't give it to me, show me what it is."

"Yes, yes, I will show it you," Sir William said, "only you are not to take it, you are not to touch it."

Pateley signed assent, and Sir William unfolded the map of Africa and held it up with a trembling hand.

"What!" said Pateley, at first hardly grasping what he saw. Then its full significance began to dawn upon him. "Africa—a partition of Africa between Germany and England! Do you mean to say that is it?"

"Yes," Sir William said. "But for Heaven's sake don't touch it, don't take it out of my hand," he said again, nervously conscious that his own strength was ebbing at every moment, and that if the resolute, dominant figure before him had chosen to seize on the paper, nothing could have prevented his doing so.

"Well, at any rate, let me have a good look at it," Pateley said, "the coast is still clear," and as he went to the window to give another look out, he took something out of his breast pocket. "Now then," he said, turning back to Sir William, "hold it up in the light so that I can have a good look at it;" and as Sir William held it in the light of the window, Pateley, as quick as lightning, drew his tiny camera out of his pocket. There was a click, and the map of Africa had been photographed. Pateley unconsciously drew a quick breath of relief as he put the machine back. Sir William, as white as a sheet, dropped his hands in dismay.

"Good Heavens! What have you done? Have you photographed it?"

"Yes," said Pateley, trying to control his own excitement, and recovering his usual tone with an effort. "That's all, thank you. It is much the simplest form of illustration."

"Illustration! What are you going to do with it?" Sir William said, aghast.

"That depends," said Pateley. "I must see how and when I can use it to the best advantage."

"You have sworn," Sir William said tremulously, "that you won't say where you got it from."

"Of course I won't," Pateley said, gradually returning to his usual burly heartiness. "Now, may I ask where you got it from?"

"I got it out of there," Sir William said, pointing to the table. "A corner of it was sticking out."

"Might I suggest that you should put it back again?" said Pateley.

"Good Heavens, yes!" said Gore. "I had forgotten." And he nervously folded it up and dropped it through the slit of the table.

"Ha, that's safer," said Pateley, with a short laugh. "You should not lose your head over these things," and he gave a swift look down the street again. "Now I must go. I am going straight to the City, and I'll tell you what I shall do," and his manner became more emphatic as he went on, as though answering some objection. "I'm going to buy up the whole of the 'Equator' shares on the chance of a rise, and perhaps some Cape to Cairo too, and then we'll see. Now, can't I do something for you too? Won't you buy something on the chance of a rise?"

Sir William had sunk into a chair. He shook his head.

"I am too tired to think," he said. "I don't know."

"Well, you leave it to me," Pateley said, "and I'll do something for you—and if things go as we think, by next week you will be in a position to make good the losses of all London two or three times over. I'll let you know what happens, and what I've been able to do."

"Thank you," Sir William said again feebly.

"The news will soon pick you up," said Pateley heartily, as he shook him by the hand. "No, don't get up; I can find my way out. Goodbye." And a moment later he passed the window, striding away towards Knightsbridge.



CHAPTER XIV

Sir William remained lying back in his chair, looking up at the ceiling, too much exhausted by the excitement of the last few minutes to realise entirely what had happened, but with a vague, agonised consciousness that he had done something irrevocable, something that mattered supremely. But to try even to conceive what might be the consequence of it so made his heart throb and his head whirl that all he could do was to put it away from him with as much effort as he had strength to make. It was so that Rachel found him, when she came gaily in a few minutes later from a shopping expedition in Sloane Street, eager to tell him of all her little doings, and of some acquaintances she had met in the street. He looked at her and tried to smile.

"Father—father—dear father!" she said in consternation. "What is it? Are you not so well?"

"Yes, yes," he said nervously, trying to speak in something like his ordinary voice. "I am—tired, that's all."

"You have been up too long," she said anxiously.

"I don't think it's that," he said.

"But where is Frank?" asked Rachel. "I thought, of course, that he was with you. That was why I went out. I had no idea you would be alone."

"Lord Stamfordham came," said Sir William, feeling like one who is forced to approach something that horrifies him, and who dares not look it in the face. "Frank went out with him."

"Lord Stamfordham! Again!" said Rachel amazed.

"Yes," said Sir William, leaning back with his eyes closed, as though unable to expend any of his feeble strength on surprise or wonder, much less on attempts at explanation. And as Rachel looked at him her solicitude overcame every other thought.

"Darling," she said, "do come back to your own room. Let's go upstairs now."

"No, no," said Sir William quickly, feeling, even though he thought of Rendel's return with absolute terror, that it would be better to know the worst at once without waiting in suspense for the blow to fall. "I'll wait till Rendel comes in."

"But he shall go up to you at once," Rachel urged. "Do come up now, dear father."

At that moment, however, the question of whether they should wait or not for Rendel's return was settled for them, for his latchkey was heard turning in the front door. He came into the room with such an air as a winged messenger of victory might wear, unconscious of his surroundings and of the road he traverses as he speeds along. Rachel looked at him, and forbore to utter either the inquiry that sprang to her lips or any appeal for sympathy about her father's condition.

"I've got to finish some writing," Rendel said, bringing back his thoughts with visible effort. And he went quickly to the writing-table, opening it with the key of his watch-chain. Sir William dared not look. He tried to remember what had happened when he so hurriedly put the paper back; he wondered whether it had stuck in the slit, or if it had gone properly through and fallen straight among the others. There was a pause during which he sat up and gripped the arms of his chair, listening as if for life. Nothing had happened apparently. Rendel had drawn up his chair and was writing again busily. Sir William fell back again and closed his eyes as a flood of relief swept over him, Rachel sitting by him quietly, her hand laid gently on his. Rendel went on writing, transcribing from some more rough pencil notes he had brought in in his hand, then, having quickly rung the bell, he proceeded to do the whole thing up in a packet and seal it securely.

"I want this taken to Lord Stamfordham at once," he said, as the servant came into the room. "And, Thacker, I should like you to go with it yourself, please. It's very important, and I want it to be given into his own hand. If he isn't in, please wait."

"Yes, sir," said Thacker, taking the precious packet and departing, with a secret thrill of wondering excitement.

Rendel pulled down the lid of the table, drawing a sort of long breath as he did so, like one who has cleared the big fence immediately in front of him, and is ready for the next. Sir William's breath was coming and going quickly.

"I'm afraid you don't look very fit for chess, Sir William," he said kindly, struck with his father-in-law's look of haggard anxiety and illness.

"No," Sir William said feebly, "not to-day, I'm afraid."

"I'm sorry to see you like this," Rendel said. "Let me help you upstairs. What have you been doing with yourself since I left you? You don't look nearly so well as when you came down."

"I feel a little faint," Sir William said. "It would be better for me to go and rest now, perhaps." And leaning on Rendel's arm, and followed solicitously by Rachel, he went upstairs.



CHAPTER XV

The night passed slowly and restlessly for Sir William Gore, although he slept from sheer exhaustion, and even when he was not sleeping was in a state of semi-coma, without any clear perception of what had happened. But in his dreams he lived through one quarter of an hour of the day before, over and over and over again, always with the same result, always with the same sense of some unexpected, horrible, shameful catastrophe, that was to lead to his utter humiliation. That was the impression that still remained when at last the morning came, and he finally awoke to the life of another day. Over and over again he went over the situation as he lay there, Pateley's words ringing in his ears, his looks present before him. Again he felt the sensation of absolute sickness at his heart that had gripped him at the moment he had realised that the map had been photographed, passing as much out of his own power as though he had given it to a man in the street. Does any one really acknowledge in his inmost soul that he has on a given occasion done "wrong," without an immeasurable qualifying of that word, without a covert resentment at the way other people may label his action? There is but one person in the world who even approximates to knowing the history of any given deed. The very fact of snatching it from its context puts it into the wrong proportion, the fact of contemplating it as though it were something deliberate, separate, complete in itself, apart from all that has led up to it, apart from the complication and pressure of circumstance. Sir William went over and over again in his mind all that had happened the day before, trying to realise under what aspect his actions would appear to others—over and over again, until everything became blurred and he hardly knew under what aspect they appeared to himself. He felt helplessly indignant with Fate, with Chance, that had with such dire results made him the plaything of a passing impulse. Then with the necessity of finding an object for his anger, his thoughts turned first to Rendel, who had primarily put him in the position of gaining the knowledge he had used to such disastrous effect, and then to Pateley, who had taken it from him.

It is unpleasant enough for a child, at a time of life generally familiar with humiliation and chastisement, to see the moment nearing when his guilt will be discovered: but it is horrible for a man who is approaching old age, who is dignified and respected, suddenly to find himself in the position of having something to conceal, of being actually afraid of facing the judgment and incurring the censure of a younger man. And at that moment Gore felt as if he almost hated the man whose hand could hurl such a thunderbolt. Then his thoughts turned to Pateley, to the probable result of his operations in the City. In the other greater anxiety which he himself had suddenly imported into his life, that first care, which yet was important enough, of the "Equator," had almost sunk out of sight. Would the mine turn out to be a gold mine after all? What would Pateley be able to do? Would he be able to make enough to cover his liabilities? and his head swam as he tried to remember what these might amount to.

In the meantime Rendel, in a very different frame of mind from that of his father-in-law, or, indeed, from that of his own of the night before, filled with a buoyant thrill of expectation, with the sense that something was going to happen, that everything might be going to happen, was looking out into life as one who looks from a watch tower waiting on fortune and circumstances, waiting confident and well-equipped without a misgiving. The day was big with fate: a day on which new developments might continue for himself, the thrill of excitement of the night before, the sense of being in the foreground, of being actually hurried along in the front between the two giants who were leading the way. The dining-room was ablaze with sunshine as he came into it, and in the morning light sat Rachel, looking up at him with a smile when he came into the room.

"What an excellent world it is, truly!" said Rendel, as he came across the room.

"I am glad it is to your liking," she answered.

"You look very well this morning," said Rendel, looking at her, "which means very pretty."

"I don't feel so especially pretty," said Rachel, with something between a smile and a sigh.

"Don't you? Don't have any illusions about your appearance," said Rendel. "Don't suppose yourself to be plain, please."

"I am not so sure," said Rachel, as she began pouring out the tea.

"What is the matter with you?" said Rendel. "What fault do you find with the world, and your appearance?"

"I am perturbed about my father," she said, her voice telling of the very real anxiety that lay behind the words. "I don't think he is as well as he was yesterday."

"Don't you?" said Rendel, more gravely. "I am very sorry. What is the matter?"

"I can't think," Rachel answered. "He may have done too much yesterday afternoon."

"He certainly looked terribly tired," said Rendel.

"Terribly," said Rachel, "but I can't imagine why. He had been so absolutely quiet all the afternoon."

"Well, you take care of him to-day," said Rendel, unable to eliminate the cheerful confidence from his voice.

"I shall indeed," said Rachel.

"Oh, he'll come all right again, never fear," said Rendel. "You mustn't take too gloomy a view."

"You certainly seem inclined to take a cheerful one this morning," said Rachel, half convinced in spite of herself that all was well.

"Well, I do," said Rendel. "I must say that in spite of the prevalent opinion to the contrary, I feel inclined this morning to say that the scheme of the universe is entirely right; it is just to my liking. The sunshine, and my breakfast, and my wife——"

"I am glad I am included," she said.

"And the day to live through. What can a man wish for more?"

"It sounds as though you had everything you could possibly want, certainly," said Rachel, smiling at him.

"I don't know," said Rendel, reflecting, "if it is that quite. The real happiness is to want everything you can possibly get. That is the best thing of all."

"And not so difficult, I should think," said Rachel.

"I am not sure," said Rendel. "I am not sure that it is quite an easy thing to have an ardent hold on life. Some people keep letting it down with a flop. But I feel as if I could hold it tight this morning at any rate. I do not believe there is a creature in the wide world that I would change places with at this moment," he went on, the force of his ardent hope and purpose breaking down his usual reserve.

"You are very enthusiastic to-day, Frank," she said.

"Well, one can't do much without enthusiasm," said Rendel, continuing his breakfast with a satisfied air, "but with it one can move the world."

"Is that what you are going to do?" said Rachel.

"Yes," said Rendel nodding.

"Frank, I wonder if you will be a great man?"

"Can you doubt it?" said Rendel.

"Supposing," she said, "some day you were a sort of Lord Stamfordham."

"That is rather a far cry," he replied. "By the way, I wonder where the papers are this morning? Why are they so late?"

"They will come directly," Rachel said. "It is a very good thing they're late, you can eat your breakfast in peace for once without knowing what has happened."

"That is not the proper spirit," said Rendel smiling, "for the wife of a future great man."

"The only thing is," said Rachel, "that if you did become a great man, I don't think I should be the sort of wife for you. I am very stupid about politics, don't you think so? I don't understand things properly."

"I think you are exactly the sort of wife I want," said Rendel, "and that is enough for me. That is the only thing necessary for you to understand. I don't believe you do understand it really."

"Then are you quite sure," she said, half laughing and half in earnest, "that you don't like politics better than you do me?"

"Absolutely certain," said Rendel, with a slight change of tone that told his passionate conviction. "I wish you could grasp that in comparison with you, nothing matters to me."

"Nothing?" she repeated.

"There is nothing," said Rendel, looking at her, "that I would not sacrifice to you—my career, my ambitions, anything you asked for."

"I am glad," she said, "that you like me so much, but I don't want you to make sacrifices," and she spoke in all unconsciousness of the number of small sacrifices, of an unheroic aspect perhaps, that Rendel was daily called upon to make for her sake.

At this moment Thacker came in with the morning papers, which he laid on the table at Rendel's elbow.

"Now then you are happy," said Rachel lightly. "Now you can bury yourself in the papers and not listen to anything I say."

"I wonder if there is anything about Stoke Newton and old Crawley's resignation," said Rendel, quite prepared to follow her advice. "I don't suppose he takes a very jovial view of life just now, poor old boy. Oh, how I should hate to be on the shelf!"

"I don't think you are likely to be, for the present," said Rachel.

And then Rendel, pushing his chair a little away from the table, opened the papers wide, and began scanning them one after another, with the mild and pleasurable excitement of the man who feels confidently abreast of circumstances. Then, as he took up the Arbiter, his eye suddenly fell upon a heading that took his breath away. What was this? He dropped the paper with a cry.

"What is it, Frank?" said Rachel startled.

"Good Heavens! what have they done that for?" he said, springing to his feet in uncontrollable excitement.

"Done what?" said Rachel.

"Why, they have announced—they have put in something that Lord Stamfordham——" He snatched up the paper again and looked at it eagerly. "It is incredible! and the map too, the very map, at this stage! Well, upon my word, he has made a mistake this time, I do believe." And he still gazed at the paper as though trying to fathom the whole hearing of what he saw.

At this moment the door opened, and Thacker came in.

"Sir William wished me to ask you for some foolscap paper, ma'am, please," he said, "with lines on it."

"Foolscap paper? What is he doing?" said Rachel anxiously.

"He is writing, ma'am," said Thacker. "He seems to be doing accounts."

"Oh, I wish he wouldn't!" Rachel said. "I must go and see. I'll bring the foolscap paper myself, Thacker. Frank, there is some in your study, isn't there?"

"What?" said Rendel, who, still absorbed in what he had just seen, had only dimly heard their colloquy.

"Some foolscap paper," she repeated. "There is some in your study?"

"Yes, yes, in my writing-table," he said absently.

Rachel went quickly out of the room. At that moment the hall door bell rang violently. Rendel started and went to the window. In the phase of acute tension in which he found himself, every unexpected sound carried an untold significance, but he was not prepared for what this one betokened: Lord Stamfordham in the street, dismounting from his horse. Stamfordham was accustomed to ride every morning from eight till nine, alone and unattended. Thacker hurried out to hold the horse. Rendel followed him and met Stamfordham on the doorstep. He led the way quickly across the hall into his study and shut the door. They both felt instinctively that greetings were superfluous.

"Have you seen the Arbiter?" Stamfordham said.

"Yes," said Rendel, looking him straight in the face with eager expectation.

"So have I," said Stamfordham, "at the German Embassy. I had not seen it before leaving home, but I saw a poster at the corner, and I went straight to Bergowitz to ask him what it meant; he is as much in the dark as I am."

"In the dark!" said Rendel, looking at him amazed. "What! but—was it not you who published it?"

"I publish it?" said Stamfordham. "Do you mean to say you thought I had?"

"Of course I did! who else?" said Rendel.

"Who else?" Stamfordham repeated. "I have come here to ask you that."

"To ask me?" said Rendel, bewildered. "How should I know? I have not seen those papers since I gave the packet sealed to Thacker to take it to you."

"And I received it," said Stamfordham, "sealed and untampered with, and opened it myself, and it has not been out of my keeping since."

"But at the German Embassy," said Rendel, "since it was telegraphed...?"

"The substance of the interview was telegraphed," said Stamfordham, "but not the map—not the map," he said emphatically. "That map no one has seen besides Bergowitz, you, and myself. Bergowitz it would be quite absurd to suspect, he is as genuinely taken back as I am—I know that it didn't get out through me, and therefore——" he paused and looked Rendel in the face.

"What!" said Rendel, with a sort of cry. A horrible light, an incredible interpretation was beginning to dawn upon him. "You can't think it was through me?"

"What else can I think?" said Stamfordham—Rendel still looked at him aghast—"since the papers after I gave them into your keeping were apparently not out of it until they passed into mine again? I brought them to you here myself. Of course I see now I ought not to have done so, but how could I have imagined——"

Rendel hurriedly interrupted him.

"Lord Stamfordham, not a soul but myself can have had access to those papers. I went out of the room, it is true," and he went rapidly over in his mind the sequence of events the day before, "for a short half-hour perhaps, when you came back here and I went out with you, but before leaving the room I remember distinctly that I shut the cover of my writing-table down with the spring, and tried it to see that it was shut, and then unlocked it myself when I came back."

"Was any one else in the room?" said Stamfordham.

"Yes," said Rendel, and a sudden idea occurred to him, to be dismissed as soon as entertained, "Sir William Gore."

"Gore?" said Stamfordham, looking at Rendel, but forbearing any comment on his father-in-law.

"It was quite impossible," Rendel said decidedly, answering Stamfordham's unspoken words, "that he could have got at the papers; for, as I told you, when I came back again they were exactly where I had left them, and the thing locked with this very complicated key, and he showed it hanging on his chain."

"It is evident," Stamfordham repeated inflexibly, "that some one must have got hold of it with or without your knowledge. I warned you yesterday, you remember, about taking your—any one in your household into your confidence."

"And I did not," Rendel said, grasping his meaning. "My wife did not even know that I had the papers to transcribe. She does not know it now."

Stamfordham paused a moment. He could not in words accuse Rendel's wife, whatever his silence might imply. Then he spoke with emphatic sternness.

"Rendel," he said, "by whatever means the thing happened, we must know how. I must have an explanation."

Rendel was powerless to speak.

"For you must see," Stamfordham went on, "what a terrible catastrophe this might have been—the danger is not over yet, in fact, although I may be strong enough for my colleagues to condone the fact that the public has been told of this before themselves, and the country may be strong enough for foreign Powers to do the same. But, as a personal matter, I must know how it got out, and I repeat, I must have an explanation. For your own sake you must explain."

Rendel felt as if the ground were reeling under his feet.

"I will try," he said, still feeling as if he were in some wild dream.

"When you have made inquiries," Stamfordham said, still speaking in a brief tone of command, "you had better come and tell me the result. I shall be at the Foreign Office till twelve."

"Till twelve. Very well," said Rendel, feeling as if there was a dark chasm between himself and that moment. Mechanically he let Lord Stamfordham out, and stood as the latter mounted and rode away. Then he turned back into the house.



CHAPTER XVI

He went into the dining-room first—Rachel was still upstairs—and picked up the Arbiter again, looking at it with this new, terrible interpretation of what he saw in it. There it was, as damning evidence as ever a man was convicted upon, the map that no one but himself and the two principals had seen, reproduced, roughly it is true, but still unmistakably, from the paper that he alone in the house had had in his possession. He turned hurriedly to the brief but guarded commentary evolved at a venture by Pateley, but nevertheless very near the truth. Pateley had played a bold game indeed, but he was playing it as skilfully and watchfully as was his wont. Rendel threw down the paper with a gesture of despair, then clenched his hands. If he had been a woman he would have wept from sheer misery and agitation. But it was of no good to clench his hands in despair; every moment that passed ought to be used to find out the truth of what had happened, to clear himself from that nightmare of suspicion.

He went hurriedly across the hall to his study with the instinct of one who feels that on the spot itself there may be some suggestion to help discovery. His writing-table was locked. He tried it, shook it. The key, one of a peculiar make, hung always on his watch-chain. It was quite impossible that, save by one who had the key, the table should have been opened. What had he done yesterday? What had happened? And he sat down and buried his face in his hands, concentrating his thoughts, trying to recall every incident. The first time that Stamfordham had come in and given him the rough notes and the map, he, Rendel, had been alone. There was no doubt of that. After that who came in? Rachel? No, Rachel had not been in the room with the papers except just at the end when Rendel was sealing up the packet. Besides, if Rachel had had a hundred secrets in her possession, they would have been as safe as in his own. Then he caught himself up—in his own! after all, he was suspected—so the impossible idea, apparently, could be entertained. Then the thought of Sir William Gore came into his mind, but only to be instantly dismissed, for since the papers were locked up in Rendel's writing-table they must have been as inaccessible to Sir William as though they had been separated from him by the walls of several apartments. And there was one thing pretty certain: Gore, supposing him to be capable of using it, had not got a duplicate key. "Even he," Rendel found himself thinking, "would not do that." He heard Rachel's step swiftly descend the stairs and go into the dining-room, then she came quickly across the hall to the study.

"Oh, there you are, Frank," she said. "My father is——" then she broke off as she saw that he was apparently buried in painful thought from which he roused himself with a start as she spoke. "Is anything the matter?"

"I will tell you," said Rendel, speaking with an effort.

"May I just ask you something first?" said Rachel hurriedly. "I want some foolscap paper for my father. He is so restless this morning, so impatient."

"It is in there—I told you, didn't I?" said Rendel, turning round and pointing to one of the drawers at the side of his table.

"In that drawer!" said Rachel. "How very stupid of me! I didn't think of that. I thought it was in the top part, and I could only get one sheet out of there."

"The top? Wasn't the top locked?" said Rendel quickly, his whole thought concentrated on the problem before him, and the part of the table must have played in the drama that affected him so nearly.

"Yes, it was," said Rachel smiling, "and I couldn't open it, but there was a little tiny corner of ruled paper sticking out, so I pulled it, and out it came."

Rendel started and looked at her.

"It is sweetly simple," she added.

"Yes," said Rendel, with an energy that surprised her. "It would come out quite easily, of course."

"Frank," she said, surprised, "what is it? You didn't mind my pulling it out, did you?"

"Of course not; I don't mind your doing anything—only—I didn't realise that things could be got out of my writing-table in that way."

"Well, you must be sure to poke them in further next time," Rachel said lightly, shutting again the side drawer to which she had been directed, and out of which she had got some sheets of foolscap. "I will be back directly."

"Wait one moment," said Rendel. "Lord Stamfordham has been here."

"Lord Stamfordham! Since I went upstairs?" said Rachel, standing still in sheer surprise.

"Yes," said Rendel. "Some secret information that—I knew about, has got into the paper and is published this morning."

"Oh, Frank, how terrible!" said Rachel. "How did it happen? Do they mind?"

"Yes, they mind," Rendel said.

"Was that what you saw in the paper," Rachel said, "that excited you so much?"

"Yes," said Rendel.

"I don't wonder," Rachel said, standing with her hand on the handle of the door, an attitude of all others least inviting of confidence. "Who let it out?"

"That is what we want to know," said Rendel. "That is what Lord Stamfordham came here to ask."

"Well, he doesn't think it was you, I suppose," said Rachel, smiling at the absurd suggestion.

"It is quite possible," Rendel said, with a dim idea that he would lead up to the statement, "that he might—that he does."

"What!" said Rachel, opening her eyes wide. "Frank! how absurd!"

"So it seems to me," said Rendel sombrely.

"Too ridiculous!—I'll come down in one moment," Rachel said apologetically. "I don't want to keep my father waiting."

"Don't say anything to him," said Rendel, "of what I have just been saying to you."

"Oh, no, I won't indeed," Rachel said. "He ought not to have anything to excite him to-day," and she went rapidly upstairs.

Rendel, as the door closed behind her, felt for the moment like a man who, shipwrecked alone, has seen a vessel draw near to him and then pass gaily on its way without bringing him help. What was to be done? Again he took hold of the situation and looked it in the face. But now a new light had been thrown upon it by Rachel. If a paper could be taken out in the way that she had shown him, it was possible that Gore might have obtained the map in the same way, though it still seemed to Rendel exceedingly unlikely that, granted he had done so, he would have been able, given the condition he was in, to act upon it soon enough for it to appear this morning. He hesitated a moment, then he made up his mind to wait no longer. He took up the Arbiter and went upstairs to Sir William's room. He met Rachel coming out.

"Oh, thank you," she said, as she saw the paper. "I was just coming down to fetch that. Father would like to see it."

"I thought I would bring it up," Rendel said. "I want to speak to him a moment."

Rachel looked alarmed.

"Frank, you will be careful, won't you?" she said. "He really is not in a fit state to discuss anything this morning."

"I am afraid what I have to say won't wait," Rendel said. "I think I had better speak to him alone." And he quite unmistakably waited for Rachel to go her way before he went into Sir William's room and shut the door. Sir William, wrapped in his dressing-gown, was sitting up in an easy chair. On the table near him were sheets of foolscap paper covered with figures, and lying beside them a letter with a bold, splotchy writing, which he quickly moved out of sight as Rendel came in, a letter that had told him of certain successful financial operations undertaken in the City on his behalf. His face was pale and haggard. He looked up, as he saw Rendel come into the room, with an expression almost of terror, dashed however with resentment. In his mind at that moment, his son-in-law was the embodiment of the fate that, in some incredible way, had, as it were, turned him, Sir William Gore, who had hitherto spent his life in the sunshine of position, of dignity, of the deserved respect of his fellow-creatures, out into a chill storm of circumstances, absolutely alone, into some terrible world where, instead of walking upright among his fellow-men, he was, by no fault of his own, he kept repeating to himself, hurrying along with a burden on his back, crouching, fearing observation, fearing detection. That burden was almost intolerable. He had been trying to distract his thoughts and seek some cold comfort by making calculations based upon the letter he had received from Pateley, but all the time, behind it lay ice-cold and immovable the thought of the price at which Pateley's co-operation had been bought, of the moment of reckoning with Rendel that must come when the sands should have run out their appointed time. So much had he suffered, so much had he been dominated by this thought, that when the door opened and Rendel finally came in, the moment brought a sort of relief. Rendel, on the other hand, when he saw Sir William looking so old, so white and feeble, suddenly felt his purpose arrested. It was impossible, surely, that this old man, with the worn, handsome face and pathetically anxious expression, could have had a hand in a diabolical machination, and the thought that it was unlikely came to him with a gleam of comfort. Then as quick as lightning came a reaction of wonderment as to what hypothesis was to take the place of this one. At any rate, there was only one thing to be done: to tell Gore the story without a moment's further delay.

"Good morning, Sir William," he said. "I am sorry to hear you are not well this morning."

"Not very," Gore said, trying to speak calmly, and involuntarily looking at the newspaper in Rendel's hand.

"I hear you were asking for the Arbiter," Rendel said.

"Yes, I should like to see it," Gore replied, "when you have done with it."

"I want you to see it," Rendel said. "There is something in it which matters a great deal." Gore felt a sudden grip at his heart. He said nothing. "Here it is," said Rendel, and he handed him the paper, folded so as to show the startling headings in big letters and the rough facsimile of the map. Gore looked at it. The whole thing swam before his eyes; he held it for a moment, trying desperately to think what he had better say, but he could find no anchorage anywhere.

"That is very surprising," he said finally. "As far as I can see, it's—it's a partition of Africa between England and Germany? Is that it? I can't see very well this morning."

"That is it," said Rendel.

"Yes, that is very important," Gore said, leaning back and letting the paper slide from his grasp. "Most important," and he was silent again, waiting in an agony of suspense for what Rendel's next words would be. Rendel, scarcely less agitated, was trying to choose them carefully.

"I am very sorry," he began, "to have to tire and worry you about this when you are not well, but I have a particular reason for talking to you about it."

"Pray go on," Gore managed to say under his breath.

"I have a special reason," said Rendel, "for wanting to remember what happened in my study yesterday afternoon."

"Yesterday afternoon?" said Gore. "Did anything particular happen?"

"That is what I want to know," said Rendel, trying to speak calmly and quietly. "You will oblige me very much if you will try to remember exactly what happened all the time, from the moment you came into the room until you left it."

Gore made an effort to pull himself together. There was no difficulty, alas! for him in remembering every single thing that had taken place—the difficulty was not to show that he remembered too well.

"When I came in," he said, endeavouring to speak in an ordinary tone, "you were at your writing-table."

"I was," said Rendel, watching him.

"And then I sat down in an armchair and read the Mayfair Gazette——" and he stopped.

"Yes. All that," Rendel said, "I remember, of course. Thacker came in telling me Lord Stamfordham was there, and I rushed out, shutting the roller top of my writing-table, which closes with a spring. I was especially careful to shut it, as it had valuable papers in it."

"Indeed?" said Sir William, almost inaudibly.

"Yes, and among them," Rendel said, watching the effect of his words, "a map—that map of Africa which is reproduced this morning in the Arbiter."

"In your writing-table?" Gore said, with quivering lips.

"Yes, in my writing-table, out of which it must have been taken."

"That is very serious," Gore forced himself to say.

"It is very serious," said Rendel, "as you will see. When I came back and had finished my work on the papers I did them up myself in a packet and sent them to Lord Stamfordham."

"Your messenger was not trustworthy, apparently," said Gore, recovering himself.

"My messenger was Thacker," Rendel said, "who is absolutely trustworthy. Lord Stamfordham himself told me that he had received the packet with my seal intact."

"Still," said Gore, "servants have been known to sell State secrets before now."

"But not Thacker," said Rendel. "However, of course I shall ask him; I must ask every one in the house, for it must have been by some one here that the thing was done, that the map was got out."

"I thought you said the table was locked?"

"It was locked, yes," said Rendel, "but I have learnt this morning that papers can be pulled out from under the lid. Rachel got a piece of foolscap paper for you in that way."

"Did she?" said Gore, feeling that he had unwittingly supplied one link in the chain of evidence.

"There was only one person, so far as I know," said Rendel, "in the room while that paper was in my desk, who could have pulled it out and looked at it, and apparently made an unwarrantable use of it." The question that he expected to hear from Gore did not follow. Rendel waited, then he went on, "That person was—you."

"What do you mean?" said Gore, sitting up, his colour going and coming quickly.

"My words, I think, are quite plain," Rendel said. "I mean that all the evidence, circumstantial, I grant, points—you must forgive me if I am wronging you—to your having taken out the map."

"Will you please give me your reasons for this extraordinary accusation?" said Gore.

"Yes," said Rendel, "I will." And he spoke more and more rapidly as, his self-control at length utterly broken down, and his emotion having gained entire possession of him, he felt the fierce joy of those who, habitually watchful of their words, yield once or twice in their lives to the impulse of letting them flow out unchecked in an overwhelming flood. "You alone were in the room with the papers; your prepossessions are all against us; you spoke yourself just now of the value of a State secret sold in the proper quarter; things are looking ugly about the 'Equator.'"

"Do you mean to hint——" said Gore.

Rendel interrupted him quickly. "No, not to hint," he said; "hinting is not in my line. I dare to say it out. I dare to say that in one of those moments of aberration, of deviation, whatever you choose to call it, that sometimes descend upon the most unlikely people, you pulled that paper out, from idle curiosity, I daresay, and finding out what it was you sent it to the Arbiter."

"You did well," said Gore bitterly, "to keep your wife out of the room while you were accusing me. I am old and defenceless," he said, with lips trembling, and again an immense self-pity rushing over him. "I can't answer; I can't reply to a young man's violence."

"I have no intention," Rendel said, still speaking with a passion which intoxicated him, "of being violent, but I must go on with this, for Lord Stamfordham won't rest until it is sifted to the bottom, and he is not a man to be trifled with. And as to your being defenceless, good God! your best defence is Rachel's trust in you and devotion to you. It is because of it that I wanted to spare her the knowledge of what we have been saying. Her faith in your infallibility has always seemed to me so touching that for her sake I have respected it. I have tried—Heaven knows I have tried!—all this time to be to you what she wished me to be." Gore stirred; he was quite incapable of speaking. "This is not the moment," Rendel went on, almost unconscious of his words, which poured out in a flood, "to keep up a hollow mockery of trust and friendship, and it is more honest to tell you fairly that I have not entirely shared her faith in you. I have always thought that, like the rest of us after all, you were neither better nor worse than most other fallible people in this world, and that you may be, as I daresay we all are, fashioned by circumstances, or even by temptation. And I tell you frankly that I believe that you did this thing that I accuse you of. How, I demand to know. That, at any rate, is not more than one man may ask of another."

Sir William winced and writhed helplessly under Rendel's words. The intolerable discomfort and misery that he felt as the moment of discovery drew near had given place gradually to a furious resentment at what he was being made to endure at the hands of one who ought not to have presumed to criticise him. As Rendel stood there, his clearly cut face hard and stern, pouring out accusations and reproach, Gore felt as if the younger man embodied all the adverse influences of his own life. It was through Rendel that the fatal opportunity had come of his getting himself into this terrible strait, Rendel: who, most unjustly in the scheme of things, was daring to tax Gore with it. It was too horrible to bear longer. He too felt that the time had come when that with which his heart and soul were overflowing must find vent in speech. As he heard Rendel's words of stern impeachment ringing in his ears, "I tell you frankly that I believe that you did this thing," he rose desperately to his feet.

"Well," he said, casting with a kind of horrible relief all restraints and prudence to the winds, "what if I had?"

Rendel turned pale.

"If you had?" he said. "You did it, then?"

"If I had," Gore went on quickly, "it wouldn't have been a crime. You can't know how easy it was for the thing to happen. I am not going to tell you—I am not going to justify myself——" And he went on with a passionate need of self-vindication, drawing from his own words the conviction that he had hardly been at fault.

"Sir William," Rendel said hurriedly, "tell me——"

"It is easy enough," said Gore, "for you to talk of faith and trust. You need not grudge my child's faith in me. I have nothing else left now." And as the two men looked at each other each in his soul had a vision of the gracious presence that had always been by Sir William's side: of one who would have believed in him, justified him, if the whole world had accused him. Rendel suddenly paused as he was going to speak.

"Life is very easy for you," Gore went on in a rapid, trembling voice. Oh, the relief of saying it all!

"It is all quite plain sailing for you, you with whom everything succeeds, you who are young and have your life before you. You have time for the things that happen to you to be made right."

"Don't let us discuss all that now," said Rendel, with an effort. "We are talking of something else that matters more than I can say. You only can tell me——"

"I will tell you nothing," said Gore loudly, excited and breathless, speaking in gasps. "One day when you are old and alone—and both of these things may come to you as well as to other people—you will understand what all this means to me."

"Father, dear father!" cried Rachel, coming in hurriedly. Anxious and wretched at Rendel's interview with her father being so unduly prolonged, she had wandered upstairs again, and when she heard the excited and angry voices she could bear the suspense no longer. "What is it?"