"Say, I came here to work!" she exclaimed.

"And I brought you under false pretences," he confessed. "My brain's not working. I can't dictate. We'll try another evening. You don't mind?"

"Of course not," she answered, glancing at the clock. "I'll be going."

"Wait a little time longer," he begged.

She resumed her seat. There was only one heavily shaded lamp burning on the table, and through the little cloud of tobacco smoke she watched him. His eyes were sometimes upon the timepiece, sometimes on the telephone. He seemed always, although his attitude was one of repose, to be listening, waiting. It was half-past nine—the middle of the second act. They knew quite well that for a quarter of an hour Elizabeth would be in her dressing room. She could ring up if she wished. The seconds ticked monotonously away. Martha found herself, too, sharing that curiously intense desire to hear the ring of the telephone. Nothing happened. A quarter to ten came and passed. She rose to her feet.

"I am going home right now," she announced.

He reached for his hat.

"I'll come with you," he suggested, a little halfheartedly.

"You'll do nothing of the sort," she objected, "or if you do, I'll never come inside your rooms again. Understand that. I don't want any of these Society tricks. See me home, indeed! I'd have you know that I'm better able to take care of myself in the streets of New York than you are. So thank you for your dinner, and just you sit down and listen for that telephone. It will ring right presently, and if it doesn't, go to bed and say to yourself that whatever she decides is best. She knows which way her happiness lies. You don't. And it's she who counts much more than you. Leave off thinking of yourself quite so much and shake hands with me, please, Mr. Ware."

He gripped her hand, opened the door, and watched her sail down towards the lift, whistling to herself, her hands in her coat pockets. Then he turned back into the room and locked himself in.



CHAPTER IX

The slow fever of inaction, fretting in Philip's veins, culminated soon after Martha's departure in a passionate desire for a movement of some sort. The very silence of the room maddened him, the unresponsive-looking telephone, the fire which had burned itself out, the dropping even of the wind, which at intervals during the evening had flung a rainstorm against the windowpane. At midnight he could bear it no longer and sallied out into the streets. Again that curious desire for companionship was upon him, a strange heritage for one who throughout the earlier stages of his life had been content with and had even sought a grim and unending solitude. He boarded a surface car for the sake of sitting wedged in amongst a little crowd of people, and he entered his club, noting the number of hats and coats in the cloakroom with a queer sense of satisfaction. He no sooner made his appearance in the main room than he was greeted vociferously from half a dozen quarters. He accepted every hospitality that was offered to him, drinking cheerfully with new as well as old acquaintances. Presently Noel Bridges came up and gripped his shoulder.

"Come and have a grill with us, Ware," he begged. "There's Seymour and Richmond here, from the Savage Club, and a whole crowd of us. Hullo, Freddy!" he went on, greeting the man with whom Philip had been talking. "Why don't you come and join us, too? We'll have a rubber of bridge afterwards."

"That's great," the other declared. "Come on, Ware. We'll rag old Honeybrook into telling us some of his stories."

The little party gathered together at the end of the common table. Philip had already drunk much more than he was accustomed to, but the only result appeared to be some slight slackening of the tension in which he had been living. His eyes flashed, and his tongue became more nimble. He insisted upon ordering wine. He had had no opportunity yet of repaying many courtesies. They drank his health, forced him into the place of honour by the side of Honeybrook, veteran of the club, and ate their meal to the accompaniment of ceaseless bursts of laughter, chaff, the popping of corks, mock speeches, badinage of every sort. Philip felt, somehow, that his brain had never been clearer. He not only held his own, but he earned a reputation for a sense of humour previously denied to him. And in the midst of it all the door opened and closed, and a huge man, dressed in plain dinner clothes, still wearing his theatre hat, with a coat upon his arm and a stick in his hand, passed through the door and stood for a moment gazing around him.

"Say, that's Sylvanus Power!" one of the young men at the table exclaimed. "Looks a trifle grim, doesn't he?"

"It's the old man, right enough," Noel Bridges murmured. "Wonder what he wants down here? It isn't in his beat?"

Honeybrook, the great New York raconteur, father of the club, touched Philip upon the shoulder.

"Hey, presto!" he whispered. "We who think so much of ourselves have become pigmies upon the face of the earth. There towers the representative of modern omnipotence. Those are the hands—grim, strong-looking hands, aren't they?—that grip the levers of modern American life. Rodin ought to do a statue of him as he stands there—art and letters growing smaller as he grows larger. We exist for him. He builds theatres for our plays, museums for our pictures, libraries for our books."

"Seems to me he is looking for one of us," Noel Bridges remarked.

"Some pose, isn't it!" a younger member of the party exclaimed reverently, as he lifted his tankard.

All these things were a matter of seconds, during which Sylvanus Power did indeed stand without moving, looking closely about the room. Then his eye at last lit upon the end of the table where Philip and his friends were seated. He approached them without a word. Noel Bridges ventured upon a greeting.

"Coming to join us, Mr. Power?" he asked.

Sylvanus Power, if he heard the question, ignored it. His eyes had rested upon Philip. He stood over the table now, looming before them, massive, in his way awe-inspiring.

"Ware," he said, "I've been looking for you."

Instinctively Philip rose to his feet. Tall though he was, he had to look up at the other man, and his slender body seemed in comparison like a willow wand. Nevertheless, the light in his eyes was illuminative. There was no shrinking away. He stood there with the air of one prepared to welcome, to incite and provoke storm whatever might be brewing.

"I have been to your rooms," Sylvanus Power went on. "They knew nothing about you there."

"They wouldn't," Philip replied. "I go where I choose and when I choose. What do you want with me?"

Conversation in the room was almost suspended. Those in the immediate locality, well acquainted with the gossip of the city, held the key to the situation. Every one for a moment, however, was spellbound. They felt the coming storm, but they were powerless.

"I sought you out, Ware," Sylvanus Power continued, his harsh voice ringing through the room, "to tell you what probably every other man here knows except you. If you know it you're a fool, and I'm here to tell you so."

"Have you been drinking?" Philip asked calmly.

"Maybe I have," Sylvanus Power answered, "but whisky can't cloud my brain or stop my tongue. You're looking at my little toy here," he went on, twirling in his right hand a heavy malacca cane with a leaden top. "I killed a man with that once."

"The weapon seems sufficient for the purpose," Philip answered indifferently.

"Any other man," Sylvanus Power went on, "would have sat in the chair for that. Not I! You don't know as much of me as you need to, Merton Ware. I'm no whippersnapper of a pen-slinger, earning a few paltry dollars by writing doggerel for women and mountebanks to act. I've hewn my way with my right arm and my brain, from the streets to the palace. They say that money talks. By God! if it does I ought to shout, for I've more million dollars than there are men in this room."

"Nevertheless," Philip said, growing calmer as he recognised the man's condition, "you are a very insufferable fellow."

There had been a little murmur throughout the room at the end of Sylvanus Power's last blatant speech, but at Philip's retort there was a hushed, almost an awed silence. Mr. Honeybrook rose to his feet.

"Sir," he said, turning to Power, "to the best of my belief you are not a member of this club."

"I am a member of any club in America I choose to enter," the intruder declared. "As for you writing and acting popinjays, I could break the lot of you if I chose. I came to see you, Ware. Come out from your friends and talk to me."

Philip pushed back his chair, made his way deliberately round the head of the table, brushing aside several arms outstretched to prevent his going. Sylvanus Power stood in an open space between the tables, swinging his cane, with its ugly top, in the middle of his hand. He watched Philip's approach and lowered his head a little, like a bull about to charge.

"If you have anything to say to me," Philip observed coolly, "I am here, but I warn you that there is one subject which is never discussed within these walls. If you transgress our unwritten rule, I shall neither listen to what you have to say nor will you be allowed to remain here."

"And what is that subject?" Sylvanus Power thundered.

"No woman's name is mentioned here," Philip told him calmly.

Several of the men had sprung to their feet. It seemed from Power's attitude as though murder might be done. Philip, however, stood his ground almost contemptuously, his frame tense and poised, his fists clenched. Suddenly the strain passed. The man whose face for a moment had been almost black with passion, lowered his cane, swayed a little upon his feet, and recovered himself.

"So you know what I've come here to talk about, young man?" he demanded.

"One can surmise," Philip replied. "If you think it worth while, I will accompany you to my rooms or to yours."

Philip in those few seconds made a reputation for himself which he never lost. The little company of men looked at one another in mute acknowledgment of a courage which not one of them failed to appreciate.

"I'll take you at your word," Sylvanus Power decided grimly. "Here, boys," he went on, moving towards the table where Philip had been seated, "give me a drink—some rye whisky. I'm dry."

Not a soul stirred. Even Noel Bridges remained motionless. Heselton, the junior manager of the theatre, met the millionaire's eye and never flinched. Mr. Honeybrook knocked the ash from his cigar and accepted the role of spokesman.

"Mr. Power," he said, "we are a hospitable company here, and we are at all times glad to entertain our friends. At the same time, the privileges of the club are retained so far as possible for those who conform to a reasonable standard of good manners."

There was a sudden thumping of hands upon the table until the glasses rattled. Power's face showed not a single sign of anger. He was simply puzzled. He had come into touch with something which he could not understand. There was Bridges, earning a salary at his theatre, to be thrown out into the streets or made a star of, according to his whim; Heselton, a family man, drawing his salary, and a good one, too, also from the theatre; men whose faces were familiar to him—some of them, he knew, on newspapers in which he owned a controlling interest. The power of which he had bragged was a real enough thing. What had come to these men that they failed to recognise it?—to this slim young boy of an Englishman that he dared to defy him?

"Pretty queer crowd, you boys," he muttered.

Philip, who had been waiting by the door, came a few steps back again.

"Mr. Power," he said, "I don't know much about you, and you don't seem to know anything at all about us. I am only at present a member by courtesy of this club, but it isn't often that any one has reason to complain of lack of hospitality here. If you take my advice, you'll apologise to these gentlemen for your shockingly bad behaviour when you came in. Tell them that you weren't quite yourself, and I'll stand you a drink myself."

"That goes," Honeybrook assented gravely. "It's up to you, sir."

Mr. Sylvanus Power felt that he had wandered into a cul-de-sac. He had found his way into one of those branch avenues leading from the great road of his imperial success. He was man enough to know when to turn back.

"Gentlemen," he said, "I offer you my apologies. I came here in a furious temper and a little drunk. I retract all that I said. I'll drink to your club, if you'll allow me the privilege."

Willing hands filled his tumbler, and grateful ones forced a glass between Philip's fingers. None of them really wanted Sylvanus Power for an enemy.

"Here's looking at you all," the latter said. "Luck!" he muttered, glancing towards Philip.

They all drank as though it were a rite. Philip and Sylvanus Power set their glasses down almost at the same moment. Philip turned towards the door.

"I am at your service now, Mr. Power," he announced. "Good night, you fellows!"

There was a new ring of friendliness in the hearty response which came from every corner of the room.

"Goodnight, Ware!"

"So long, old fellow!"

"Good night, old chap!"

There was a little delay in the cloakroom while the attendant searched for Philip's hat, which had been temporarily misplaced. Honeybrook, who had followed the two men out of the room, fumbling for a moment in his locker and, coming over to Philip, dropped something into the latter's overcoat pocket.

"Rather like a scene in a melodrama, isn't it, Ware," he whispered, "but I know a little about Sylvanus Power. It's only a last resource, mind."



CHAPTER X

Philip fetched his hat, and the two men stepped out on to the pavement. A servant in quiet grey livery held open the door of an enormous motor car. Sylvanus Power beckoned his companion to precede him.

"Home," he told the man, "unless," he added, turning to Philip, "you'd rather go to your rooms?"

"I am quite indifferent," Philip replied.

They drove off in absolute silence, a silence which remained unbroken until they passed through some elaborate iron gates and drew up before a mansion in Fifth Avenue.

"You'll wait," Sylvanus Power ordered, "and take this gentleman home. This way, sir."

The doors rolled open before them. Philip caught a vista of a wonderful hall, with a domed roof and stained glass windows, and a fountain playing from some marble statuary at the further end. A personage in black took his coat and hat. The door of a dining room stood open. A table, covered with a profusion of flowers, was laid, and places set for two. Mr. Sylvanus Power turned abruptly to a footman.

"You can have that cleared away," he directed harshly. "No supper will be required."

He swung around and led the way into a room at the rear of the hall, a room which, in comparison with Philip's confused impressions of the rest of the place, was almost plainly furnished. There was a small oak sideboard, upon which was set out whisky and soda and cigars; a great desk, covered with papers, before which a young man was seated; two telephone instruments and a phonograph. The walls were lined with books. The room itself was long and narrow. Power turned to the young man.

"You can go to bed, George," he ordered. "Disconnect the telephones."

The young man gathered up some papers, locked the desk in silence, bowed to his employer, and left the room without a word. Power waited until the door was closed. Then he stood up with his back to the fireplace and pointed to a chair.

"You can sit, if you like," he invited. "Drink or smoke if you want to. You're welcome."

"Thank you," Philip replied. "I'd rather stand."

"You don't want even to take a chair in my house, I suppose," Mr. Sylvanus Power went on mockingly, "or drink my whisky or smoke my cigars, eh?"

"From the little I have seen of you," Philip confessed, "my inclinations are certainly against accepting any hospitality at your hands."

"That's a play-writing trick, I suppose," Sylvanus Power sneered, "stringing out your sentences as pat as butter. It's not my way. There's the truth always at the back of my head, and the words ready to fit it, but they come as they please."

"I seem to have noticed that," Philip observed.

"What sort of a man are you, anyway?" the other demanded, his heavy eyebrows suddenly lowering, his wonderful, keen eyes riveted upon Philip. "Can I buy you, I wonder, or threaten you?"

"That rather depends upon what it is you want from me?"

"I want you to leave this country and never set foot in it again. That's what I want of you. I want you to get back to your London slums and write your stuff there and have it played in your own poky little theatres. I want you out of New York, and I want you out quick."

"Then I am afraid," Philip regretted, "that we are wasting time. I haven't the least intention of leaving New York."

"Well, we'll go through the rigmarole," Power continued gruffly. "We've got to understand one another. There's my cheque book in that safe. A million dollars if you leave this country—alone—within twenty-four hours, and stay away for the rest of your life."

Philip raised his eyebrows. He was lounging slightly against the desk.

"I should have no use for a million dollars, Mr. Power," he said. "If I had, I should not take it from you, and further, the conditions you suggest are absurd."

"Bribery no good, eh?" Mr. Power observed. "What about threats? There was a man once who wrote a letter to a certain woman, which I found. I killed him a few days afterwards. There was a sort of a scuffle, but it was murder, right enough. I am nearer the door than you are, and I should say about three times as strong. How would a fight suit you?"

Ware's hand was in his overcoat pocket.

"Not particularly," he answered. "Besides, it wouldn't be fair. You see, I am armed, and you're not."

As though for curiosity, he drew from his pocket the little revolver which Honeybrook had slipped into it. Power looked at it and shrugged his shoulders.

"We'll leave that out, then, for the moment," he said. "Now listen to me. I'm off on another tack now. Eight years ago I met Elizabeth Dalstan. I was thirty-eight years old then—I am forty-six now. You young men nowadays go through your life, they tell me, with a woman on your hands most of the time, waste yourself out in a score of passions, go through the same old rigmarole once a year or something like it. I was married when I was twenty-four. I got married to lay my hands on the first ten thousand dollars I needed. My wife left me fifteen years ago. You may have read of her. She was a storekeeper's daughter then. She has a flat in Paris now, a country house in England, a villa at Monte Carlo and another at Florence. She lives her life, I live mine. She's the only woman I'd ever spoken a civil word to until I met Elizabeth Dalstan, or since."

Philip was interested despite his violent antipathy to the man.

"A singular record of fidelity," he remarked suavely.

"If you'd drop that play-acting talk and speak like a man, I'd like you better," Sylvanus Power continued. "There it is in plain words. I lived with my wife until we quarrelled and she left me, and while she lived with me I thought no more of women than cats. When she went, I thought I'd done with the sex. Elizabeth Dalstan happened along, and I found I hadn't even begun. Eight years ago we met. I offered her at once everything I could offer. Nothing doing. We don't need to tell one another that she isn't that sort. I went off and left her, spent a winter in Siberia, and came home by China. I suppose there were women there and in Paris. I was there for a month. I didn't see them. Then America. Elizabeth Dalstan was still touring, not doing much good for herself. I hung around for a time, tried my luck once more—no go. Then I went back to Europe, offered my wife ten million and an income for a divorce. It didn't suit her, so I came back again. The third time I found Elizabeth discouraged. If ever a man found a woman at the right time, I did. She is ambitious—Lord knows why! I hate acting and the theatres and everything to do with them. However, I tried a new move. I built that theatre in New York—there isn't another place like it in the world—and offered it to her for a birthday present. Then she began to hesitate."

"Look here," Philip broke in, "I know all this. I know everything you have told me, and everything you can tell me. What about it? What have you got to say to me?"

"This," Sylvanus Power declared, striking the desk with his clenched fist. "I have only had one consolation all the time I have been waiting—there has been no other man. Elizabeth isn't that sort. Each time I was separated and came back, I just looked at her and I knew. That's why I have been patient. That is why I haven't insisted upon my debt being paid. You understand that?"

"I hear what you say."

Power crossed the room, helped himself to whisky, and returned to his place with the tumbler in his hand. There was a brief silence. A little clock upon the mantelpiece struck two. The street sounds outside had ceased save for the hoot of an occasional taxicab. Philip was conscious of a burning desire to get away. This man, this great lump of power and success, standing like a colossus in his wonderful home, infuriated him. That a man should live who thought he had a right such as he claimed, was maddening.

"Well," Power proceeded, setting down the tumbler empty, "you won't be bought. How am I going to get you out of the way?"

"You can't do it," Philip asserted. "I am going to-morrow morning to Elizabeth, and I am going to pray her to marry me at once."

Power swayed for a single moment upon his feet. The teeth gleamed between his slightly parted lips. His great arm was outstretched, its bursting muscles showing against the sleeve of his dinner coat. His chest was heaving.

"If you do it," he shouted, "I'll close the theatre to-morrow and sack every one in it. I'll buy any theatre in New York where you try to present your namby-pamby play. I'll buy every manager she goes to for an engagement, every newspaper that says a word of praise of any work of yours. I tell you I'll stand behind the scenes and pull the strings which shall bring you and her to the knowledge of what failure and want mean. I'll give up the great things in life. I'll devote every dollar I have, every thought of my brain, every atom of my power, to bringing you two face to face with misery. That's if I keep my hands off you. I mayn't do that."

Philip shrugged his shoulders.

"If I put you in a play," he said, "which is where you really belong, people would find you humorous. Your threats don't affect me at all, Mr. Power. Elizabeth can choose."

Power leaned over to the switch and turned on an electric light above Philip's head.

"Blast you, let me look at you!" he thundered. "You're a white-faced, sickly creature to call yourself a man! Can't you see this thing as I see it? You're the sort that's had women, and plenty of them. Another will do for you, and, my God! she is the only one I've looked at—I, Sylvanus Power, mind—I, who have ruled fate and ruled men all my life—I want her! Don't be a fool! Get out of my path. I've crushed a hundred such men as you in my day."

Philip took up his hat.

"We are wasting time," he observed. "You are a cruder person than I thought you, Mr. Power. I am sorry for you, if that's anything."

"Sorry for me? You?"

"Very," Philip continued. "You see, you've imbibed a false view of life. You've placed yourself amongst the gods and your feet really are made of very sticky clay.... Shall I find my own way out?"

"You can find your way to hell!" Power roared. "Use your toy pistol, if you want to. You're going where you'll never need it again!"

He took a giant stride, a stride which was more like the spring of a maddened bull, towards Philip. The veneer of a spurious civilisation seemed to have fallen from him. He was the great and splendid animal, transformed with an overmastering passion. There was murder in his eyes. His great right arm, with its long, hairy fingers and its single massive ring, was like the limb of some prehistoric creature. Philip's brain and his feet, however, were alike nimble. He sprang a little on one side, and though that first blow caught him just on the edge of the shoulder and sent him spinning round and round, he saved himself by clutching at the desk. Fortunately, it was his left arm that hung helpless by his side. His fingers groped feverishly in the cavernous folds of his overcoat pocket. Power, who had dashed against the wall, smashing the glass of one of the pictures, had already recovered his balance and turned around. The little revolver, with whose use Philip was barely acquainted, flashed suddenly out in the lamplight. Even in that lurid moment he kept his nerve. He aimed at the right arm outstretched to strike him, and pulled the trigger. Through the little mist of smoke he saw a spasm of pain in his assailant's face, felt the thundering crash of his other arm, striking him on the side of the head. The room spun round. There was a second almost of unconsciousness.... When he came to, he was lying with his finger pressed against the electric bell. Power was clutching the desk for support, and gasping. The sober person in black, with a couple of footmen behind, were already in the room.... Their master turned to them.

"There has been an accident here," he groaned, "nothing serious. Take that gentleman and put him in the car. It's waiting outside for him. Telephone round for Doctor Renshaw."

For a single moment the major-domo hesitated. The weapon was still smoking in Philip's hand. Then Power's voice rang out again in furious command.

"Do as I tell you," he ordered. "If there's one of you here opens his lips about this, he leaves my service to-morrow. Not a dollar of pension, mind," he added, his voice shaking a little.

The servant bowed sombrely.

"Your orders shall be obeyed, sir," he promised.

He took up the telephone, and signed to one of the footmen, who helped Philip to the door. A moment afterwards the latter sank back amongst the cushions, a little dizzy and breathless, but revived almost instantly by the cool night air. He gave the chauffeur his address, and the car glided through the iron gates and down Fifth Avenue.



CHAPTER XI

Philip was awakened the next morning by the insistent ringing of the telephone at his elbow. He took up the receiver, conscious of a sharp pain in his left shoulder as he moved.

"Is this Mr. Merton Ware?" a man's smooth voice enquired.

"Yes!"

"I am speaking for Mr. Sylvanus Power. Mr. Sylvanus Power regrets very much that he is unable to lunch with Mr. Ware as arranged to-day, but he is compelled to go to Philadelphia on the morning train. He will be glad to meet Mr. Ware anywhere, a week to-day, and know the result of the matter which was discussed last night."

"To whom am I speaking?" Philip demanded. "I don't know anything about lunching with Mr. Power to-day."

"I am Mr. Power's secretary, George Lunt," was the reply. "Mr. Power's message is very clear. He wishes you to know that he will not be in New York until a week to-day."

"How is Mr. Power?" Philip enquired.

"He met with a slight accident last night," the voice continued, "and is obliged to wear his arm in a sling. Except for that he is quite well. He has already left for Philadelphia by the early train. He was anxious that you should know this."

"Thank you very much," Philip murmured, a little dazed.

He sprang out of bed, dressed quickly, hurried over his coffee and rolls, boarded a cross-town car, and arrived at the Monmouth House flats just in time to meet Martha Grimes issuing into the street. She was not at all the same Martha. She was very neatly dressed, her shoes were nicely polished, her clothes well brushed, her gloves new, and she wore a bunch of fresh-looking violets in her waistband. She started in surprise as Philip accosted her.

"Whatever are you doing back in the slums?" she demanded. "Any fresh trouble?"

"Nothing particular," Philip replied, turning round and falling into step with her. "I can't see my way, that's all, and I want to talk to you. You're the most human person I know, and you understand Elizabeth."

"Gee!" she smiled. "This is the lion and the mouse, with a vengeance. You can walk with me, if you like, as far as the block before the theatre. I'm not going to arrive there with you, and I tell you so straight."

"No followers, eh?"

"There's no reason to set people talking," she declared. "Their tongues wag fast enough at the theatre, as it is. I've only been there for one day's work, and it seems to me I've heard the inside history of every one connected with the place."

"That makes what I have to say easier," he remarked. "Just what do they say about Miss Dalstan and Mr. Sylvanus Power?"

She looked at him indignantly.

"If you think you're going to worm things out of me—"

"Don't be foolish," he interrupted, a little wearily. "How could you know anything? You are only the echo of a thousand voices. I could find out, if I went where they gossip. I don't. In effect I don't care, but I am up against a queer situation. I want to know just what people think of them. Afterwards I'll tell you the truth."

"Well, they profess to think," she said slowly, "that the theatre belongs to Miss Dalstan, and that she—"

"Stop, please," he interrupted. "I know you hate saying it, and I know quite well what you mean. Well, what about that?"

"It isn't my affair."

"It isn't true," he told her.

"Whether it's true or not, she is one of the best women in the world," Martha declared vigorously.

"There isn't any doubt about that, either," he assented. "This is the situation. Listen. Sylvanus Power has been in love with Elizabeth for the best part of his life. He built that theatre for her and offered it—at a price. She accepted his terms. When the time came for payment, he saw her flinch. He went away again and has just come back. She is face to face now with a decision, a decision to which she is partly committed. In the meantime, during these last few months, Elizabeth and I have become great friends. You know that I care for her. I think that she cares for me. She has to make up her mind. Martha, which is she to choose?"

"How do you want me to answer that?" the girl asked, slackening her pace a little. "I'm not Miss Dalstan."

"From her point of view," he explained eagerly. "This man Power is madly and I believe truly in love with her. In his way he is great; in his way, too, he is a potentate. He can give her more than luxury, more, even, than success. You know Elizabeth," he went on. "She is one of the finest women who ever breathed, an idealist but a seeker after big things. She deserves the big things. Is she more likely to find them with me or with him?"

"Power's wife is still alive," she ruminated.

"And won't accept a divorce at present," he observed. "If ever she does, of course he will marry her. That has to be taken into account not morally but the temporal side of it. We know perfectly well that whatever Elizabeth decides, she couldn't possibly do wrong."

Martha smiled a little grimly.

"That's what it is to be born in the clouds," she said. "There is no sin for a good woman."

He looked at her appreciatively.

"I wonder how I knew that you would understand this," he sighed.

Suddenly he clutched at her arm. She glanced up in surprise. He was staring at a passer-by. Her eyes followed his. In a neat morning suit, with a black bowler hat and well-polished shoes, a cigar in his mouth and a general air of prosperity, Mr. Edward Dane was strolling along Broadway. He passed without a glance at either of them. For a moment Philip faltered. Then he set his teeth and walked on. There was an ashen shade in his face. The girl looked at him and shook her head.

"Mr. Ware," she said, "we haven't talked much about it, but there is something there behind, isn't there, something you are terrified about, something that might come, even now?"

"She knows about it," he interposed quickly.

"Would it be very bad if it came?"

"Hideous!"

"If she were your wife—?"

"She would be notorious. It would ruin her."

"Do you think, then," she asked quietly, "that you needed to come and ask my advice?"

He walked on with his head high, looking upwards with unseeing eyes. A little vista of that undisturbed supper table on the other side of the marble hall, a dim perspective of those eight years of waiting, flitted through his brain. The lord of that Fifth Avenue Mansion was in earnest, right enough, and he had so much to offer.

"It will break me if I have to give her up," he said simply. "I believe I should have gone overboard, crossing the Atlantic, but for her."

"There are some women," she sighed, "the best of all women, the joy of whose life seems to be sacrifice. That sounds queer, don't it, but it's true. They're happy in misfortune, so long as they are helping some one else. She is wonderful, Elizabeth Dalstan. She may even be one of those. You'll find that out. You'd better find out for yourself. There isn't any one can help you very much."

"I am not sure that you haven't," he said. "Now I'll go. Where did you get your violets, Martha? Had them in water since last night, haven't you?"

She made a little grimace at him.

"A very polite young gentleman at the box office sent us each a bunch directly we started work yesterday. I've only had a few words with him yet, but Eva—that's the other girl—she's plagued to death with fellows already, so I'm going to take him out one evening."

Philip stopped short. They were approaching the theatre.

"Not a step further," he declared solemnly. "I wouldn't spoil your prospects for worlds. Run along, my little cynic, and warm your hands. Life's good at your age—better than when I found you, eh?"

"You don't think I am ungrateful?" she asked, a little wistfully.

He shook his head.

"You couldn't be that, Martha.... Good luck to you!"

She turned away with a little farewell wave of the hand and was lost at once in the surging stream of people. Philip summoned a taxicab, sat far back in the corner, and drove to his rooms. He hesitated for a moment before getting out, crossed the pavement quickly, hurried into the lift, and, arriving up-stairs, let down the latch of the outside door. Edward Dane was back in New York! For a moment, the memory of the great human drama in which he found himself a somewhat pathetic figure seemed swallowed up by this sudden resurrection of a grisly tragedy. He looked around his room a little helplessly. Against his will, that hideous vision which had loomed up before him in so many moments of depression was slowly reforming itself, this time not in the still watches of the night but in the broad daylight, with the spring sunshine to cheer his heart, the roar of a friendly city in his ears. It was no time for dreams, this, and yet he felt the misery sweeping in upon him, felt all the cold shivers of his ineffective struggles. Slowly that fateful panorama unfolded itself before his memory. He saw himself step out with glad relief from the uncomfortable, nauseous, third-class carriage, and, clutching his humble little present in his hand, cross the flinty platform, climb the long, rain-swept hill, keeping his head upraised, though the very sky seemed grimy, battling against the miserable depression of that everlasting ugliness. Before him, at least, there was his one companion. There would be kind words, sympathy, a cheerful fireside, a little dreaming, a little wandering into that world which they had made for themselves with the help of such treasures as that cheap little volume he carried. And then the last few steps, the open door, the room, its air at first of wonderful comfort, and then the queer note of luxury obtruding itself disquietingly, the picture on the mantelpiece, her coming. He had never been in love with Beatrice. He knew that now perfectly well. He had simply clung to her because she was the only living being who knew and understood, because they had mingled their thoughts and trodden the path of misery together. Removed now from that blaze of passion, smouldering perhaps in him through previous years of discontent, but which leaped into actual and effective life for the first time in those few moments, he realised a certain justice in her point of view, a certain hard logic in the way she had spoken of life and their relations. There had been so little real affection between them. So little had passed which might have constituted a greater bond. It was his passionate outburst of revolt against life, whose drear talons seemed to have fastened themselves into his very soul, which had sent him out with murder in his brain to seek the man who had robbed him of the one thing which stood between him and despair; the pent-up fury of a lifetime which had tingled in his blood and had given him the strength of the navvy in those few minutes by the canal side.

He covered his face with his hands, strode around the room, gazing wildly out over the city, trying to listen to the clanging of the surface cars, the rumble of the overhead railway in the distance, the breaking of the long, ceaseless waves of human feet upon the pavement. It was useless. No effort of his will could keep from his brain the haunting memory of those final moments—the man's face, handsome and well-satisfied at first, the careless greeting, the sudden change, the surprise, the apprehension, the ghastly fear, the agony! He heard the low, gurgling shriek of terror; he looked into the eyes with the fear of hell before them! Then he heard the splash of the black, filthy water.

There was a cry. It was several seconds before he realised that it had broken from his lips. He looked around him like a hunted creature. There was another terror now—the gloomy court with its ugly, miserable paraphernalia—the death, uglier still, death in disgrace, a sordid, ghastly thing! And in his brain, too, there was so much dawning, so many wonderful ideas craving for fulfilment. These few months had been months of marvellous development. The power of the writer had seemed to grow, hour by hour. His brain was full of fancies, exquisite fancies some of them. It was a new world growing up around him and within him, too beautiful a world to leave. Yet, in those breathless moments, fear was the dominant sensation. He felt a coward to his fingertips...

He walked up and down the room feverishly, as a man might pace a prison in the first few moments of captivity. There was no escape! If he disappeared again, it would only rivet suspicion the more closely. There was no place to which he could fly, no shelter save on the other side of the life which he had just begun to love. His physical condition began to alarm him. He felt his forehead by accident and found it damp with sweat. His heart was beating irregularly with a spasmodic vigour which brought pain. He caught sight of his terror-stricken face in the looking-glass, and the craving to escape from his frenzied solitude overcame all his other resolutions. He rushed to the telephone, spoke with Phoebe, waited breathlessly whilst she fetched his mistress to the instrument.

"I want to see you," he begged, as soon as he was conscious of her presence at the other end. "I want to see you at once."

"Has anything happened?" she asked quickly.

"Yes!" he almost groaned. "I can't tell you—"

"I will be with you in ten minutes," she promised.

He set the receiver down. Those ten minutes were surely the longest which had ever ticked their way into Eternity! And then she came. He heard the lift stop and his door open. There was a moment's breathless silence as their eyes met, then a little gathering together of the lines of her forehead, a half querulous, half sympathetic smile. She shook her head at him.

"You've had one of those silly nervous attacks," she declared. "Tell me at once why?"

"Dane is back—I saw him on the pavement this morning!" he exclaimed. "He has been to England to find out!"

She made him sit down and seated herself by his side.

"Listen," she said, "Dane came back on the Orinoco, the day before yesterday. I saw his name in the paper. If his voyage to England had been a success, which it could not have been, you would have heard from him before now."

"I didn't think of that," he muttered.

"I have never asked you," she went on, "to tell me exactly what happened behind there. I don't want to know. Only I have a consciousness—I had from the first, when you began to talk to me about it—that your fears were exaggerated. If you have been allowed to remain safe all this time, you will be safe always. I feel it, and I am always right in these things. Now use your own common sense. Tell me truthfully, don't you think it is very improbable that anything could be discovered?"

"That anything could be proved," he admitted eagerly, "yes!"

"Then don't be silly. No one is likely to make accusations and attempt a case unless they had a definite end in view. We are safe even from the Elletania people. Mr. Raymond Greene has ceased to talk of your wonderful resemblance to Douglas Romilly. Phoebe—the only one who could really know—will never open her lips. Now take me for a little walk. We will look in the shops in Fifth Avenue and lunch at the Ritz-Carlton. Go and brush yourself and make yourself look respectable. I'll have a cigarette and read the paper.... No, I won't, I'll look over these loose sheets and see how you are getting on."

He disappeared into his room for a few minutes. When he returned she was entirely engrossed. She looked up at him with something almost of reverence in her face.

"When did you write this?" she asked.

"Yesterday, most of it," he answered. "There is more of it—I haven't finished yet. When you send me away this afternoon, I shall go on. That is only the beginning. I have a great idea dawning."

"What you have written is wonderful," she said simply. "It makes me feel almost humble, makes me feel that the very best actress in the world remains only an interpretress. Yes, I can say those words you have written, but they can never be mine. I want to be something more than an intelligent parrot, Philip. Why can't you teach me to feel and think things like that?"

"You!" he murmured, as he took her arm and led her to the door. "You could feel all the sweetest and most wonderful things in heaven. The writer's knack is only a slight gift. I put on paper what lives in your heart."

She raised her head, and he kissed her lips. For a moment he held her quite quietly. Her arms encircled him. The perfume of her clothes, her hair, her warm, gentle touch, seemed like a strong sedative. If she said that he was safe, he must be. It was queer how so often at these times their sexes seemed reversed; it was he who felt that womanly desire for shelter and protection which she so amply afforded him. She patted his cheek.

"Now for our little walk," she said. "Open the windows and let out all these bad fancies of yours. And listen," she went on, as they stepped out of the lift a moment or two later, and passed through the hall towards the pavement, "not a word about our own problem. We are going to talk nonsense. We are going to be just two light-hearted children in this wonderful city, gazing at the sights and taking all she has to offer us. I love it, you know. I love the noise of it. It isn't a distant, stifled roar like London. There's a harsh, clarion-like note about it, like metal striking upon metal. And the smell of New York—there isn't any other city like it! When we get into Fifth Avenue I am going to direct your attention to the subject of hats. Have you ever bought a woman's hat, Philip?"

"Never," he answered, truthfully enough.

"Then you are going to this morning, or rather you are going to help me to choose one," she declared, "and in a very few moments, too. There is a little place almost underground in Fifth Avenue there, and a Frenchwoman—oh, she is so French!—and all her assistants have black hair and wear untidy, shapeless clothes and velvet slippers. It isn't New York at all, but I love it, and I let them put their name on the programme. They really don't charge me more than twice as much as they ought to for my hats. We go down here," she added, descending some steps, "and if you make eyes at any of the young women I shall bring you straight out again."

They spent half an hour choosing a hat and nearly two hours over lunch. It was late in the afternoon before she dropped him at his rooms. Not a word had they spoken of Sylvanus Power or their future, but Philip was a different man. Only, as he turned and said good-by, his voice trembled.

"I can't say thank you," he muttered, "but you know!"...

The lift was too slow for him. He opened his door with almost breathless haste. He only paused to light a cigarette and change his coat and wheel his table round so as to catch the afternoon light more perfectly. Then, with his brain teeming with fancies, he plunged into his work.



CHAPTER XII

Philip let the pen slip at last from his tired fingers. The light had failed. He had been writing with straining eyes, almost in the darkness. But there was something else. Had it been fancy or ... This time there could be no mistake. He had not heard the lift stop, but some one was knocking softly at the door, softly but persistently. He turned his head. The room seemed filled with shadows. He had written for hours, and he was conscious that his limbs were stiff. The sun had gone down in a cloudy sky, and the light had faded. He could scarcely distinguish the articles of furniture at the further end of the room. For some reason or other he felt tongue-tied. Then, without any answer from him to this mysterious summons, the handle of the door slowly turned. As he sat there he saw it pushed open. A woman, wrapped in a long coat, stepped inside, closing it firmly behind her. She stood peering around the room. There was something familiar and yet unfamiliar in her height, her carriage. He waited, spellbound, for her voice.

"Douglas!" she exclaimed. "Ah, there you are!"

The words seemed to die away, unuttered, upon his lips. He suddenly thought that he was choking. He stared at her blankly. It was impossible! She came a step further into the room. Her hand was stretched out accusingly.

"So I've found you, have I, Douglas?" she cried, and there was a note of bitter triumph in her words, "found you after all these months! Aren't you terrified? Aren't you afraid? No wonder you sit there, shrinking away! Do you know what I have come for?"

He tried to speak, but his lips were as powerless to frame words as his limbs were to respond to his desire for movement. This was the one thing which he had not foreseen.

"You broke your promise," she went on, raising her voice a little in passionate reproach. "You left me there alone to face dismissal, without a penny, and slipped off yourself to America. You never even came in to wish me good-by. Why? Tell me why you went without coming near me?... You won't, eh? You daren't. Be a man. Out with it. I am here, and I know the truth."

For the first time some definite sound came from his lips.

"Beatrice!" he gasped.

"Ah!" she mocked. "You can remember my name, then? Douglas, I knew that you were a bad man. I knew that when you told me how you meant to cheat your creditors, how you meant to escape over here on the pretext of business, and bring all the money you could scrape together. I knew that, and yet I was willing to come with you, and I should have come. But there was one thing I didn't reckon upon. I didn't know that you had the heart or the courage to be a murderer!"

The little cry that broke from his lips was stifled even before it was uttered.

"I shall never forgive you!" she sobbed. "I never want to touch your bloodstained fingers! I have forgotten that I ever loved you. You're horrible—do you hear?—horrible! And yet, I don't mean to be left to starve. That's why I've followed you. You're afraid I am going to give you up to justice? Well, I don't know. It depends.... Turn on the lights. I want to see you. Do you hear? I want to see how you can face me. I want to see how the memory of that afternoon has dealt with you. Do as I tell you. Don't stand there glowering at me."

He crossed the room with stumbling footsteps.

"You've learnt to stoop, anyhow," she went on. "You're thinner, too.... My God!"

The room was suddenly flooded with light. Philip, rigid and ghastly, was looking at her from the other side of the table. She held up her hands as though to shut out the sight of him.

"Philip!" she shrieked. "Philip!... Oh, my God!"

Her eyes were lit with horror as she swayed upon her feet. For a moment she seemed about to collapse. Then she groped her way towards the door and stood there, clinging to the handle. Slowly she looked around over her shoulder, her face as white as death. She moistened her lips with her tongue, her eyes glared at him. Behind, her brain seemed to be working. Her first spasm of inarticulate fear passed.

"Philip—-alive!" she muttered. "Alive!... Speak! Can't you speak to me? Are you a ghost?"

"Of course not," he answered, with a calm which surprised him. "You can't have forgotten in less than six months what I look like."

A new expression struggled into her face. She abandoned her grasp of the handle and came back to her former position.

"Look here," she faltered, "if you are Philip Romilly, where's he—Douglas?... Where's Douglas?"

There was no answer. Philip simply looked at her. She began to shake once more upon her feet.

"Where's Douglas?" she demanded fiercely. "Tell me? Tell me quickly, before I go mad! If you are Philip Romilly alive, if it wasn't your body they found, where's Douglas?"

"You can guess what happened to him," Philip said slowly. "I met him on the towing-path by the side of the canal. I spoke to him—about you. He answered me with a jest. I think that all the passion of those grinding years of misery swept up at that moment from my heart. I was strong—God, how strong I was! I took him by the throat, Beatrice. I watched his face change. I watched his damned, self-satisfied complacency fade away. He lost all his smugness, and his eyes began to stare at me, and his lips grew whiter as they struggled to utter the cries for mercy which choked back. Then I flung him in—that's all. Splash!... God, I can hear it now! I saw his face just under the water. Then I went on."

"You went on?" she repeated, trembling in every limb.

"I picked up the pocketbook which I had shaken out of his clothes in that first struggle. I studied its contents, and it gave me an idea. I went to Liverpool, stayed at the hotel where he had engaged rooms, dressed myself in his clothes, and went on the steamer in his place. I travelled to New York as Mr. Douglas Romilly of the Douglas Romilly Shoe Company, occupied my room at the Waldorf under that name. Then I disappeared suddenly—there were too many people waiting to see me. I took the pseudonym which he had carefully prepared for himself and hid for a time in a small tenement house. Then I rewrote the play. There you have my story."

"You—murdered him, Philip!... You!"

"It was no crime," he continued calmly, filled with a queer sense of relief at the idea of being able to talk about it. "My whole life, up till that day, had been one epitome of injustice and evil fortune. You were my one solace. His life—well, you know what it had been. Everything was made easy for him. He had a luxurious boyhood, he was sent to college, pampered and spoilt, and passed on to a dissipated manhood. He spent a great fortune, ruined a magnificent business. He lived, month by month, hour by hour, for just the voluptuous pleasures which his wealth made possible to him. That was the man I met on the canal bank that afternoon. You know the state I was in. You know very well the grievance I had against him."

"You had no right to interfere," she said dully. "If I chose to accept what he had to give, it was my business. There never had been over-much affection between you and me. We were just waifs together. Life wouldn't give us what we wanted. I had made up my mind months before to escape whenever the opportunity came. Douglas brought it to me and I snatched at it. I am not accepting any blame."

He leaned towards her.

"Neither am I," he declared. "Do you remember we used to talk about the doctrine of responsibility? I am a pervert. I did what I had to do, and I am content."

She stood quite still for several moments. Then she took out the pins from her hat, banged it upon the table, opened her tweed coat, came round to the fireside, and threw herself into an easy-chair. Her action was portentous and significant.

"Tell me how you found me out?" he asked, after a brief pause.

"I was dismissed from Detton Magna," she told him. "I had to go and be waiting-maid to Aunt Esther at Croydon. I took the place of her maid-of-all-work. I scrubbed for my living. There wasn't anything else. I hadn't clothes to try for the bolder things, not a friend in the world, but I was only waiting. I meant, at the first chance, to rob Aunt Esther, to come to London, dress myself properly, and find a post on the stage, if possible. I wasn't particular. Then one day a man came to see me—an American. He'd travelled all the way from New York because he was interested in what he called the mysterious Romilly disappearance. He knew that I had been Douglas' friend. He asked me to come out and identify—you! He offered me my passage, a hundred pounds, and to give me a start in life here, if I needed it. So I came out with him."

"With Dane," he muttered.

She nodded.

"Yes, that was his name—Mr. Edward Dane. I came out to identify Douglas."

"You weren't going to give him away?" Philip asked curiously.

"Of course not. I should have made my bargain, and then, after I had scared Douglas for leaving me as he did, I should have said that it wasn't the man. And instead—I found you!"

He tapped the table with his fingers, restlessly. A new hope was forming in his brain. This, indeed, might be the end of all his troubles.

"Listen," he said earnestly, "Dane has always suspected me. Sometimes I have wondered whether he hadn't the truth at the back of his head. You can make me safe forever."

She made no reply. Her eyes were watching his face. She seemed to be waiting to hear what else he had to say.

"Don't you understand?" he went on impatiently. "You have only to tell Dane that I am neither Douglas nor Philip, but curiously like both, and he will chuck the thing up. He must. Then I shall be safe. You see that, don't you?"

"Yes, I see that," she admitted.

"Well?"

"Tell me exactly how much of Douglas' money you have spent?" she demanded.

"Only the loose money from the pocketbook. Not all of that. I am earning money now."

She leaned across the table.

"What about the twenty thousand pounds?"

"I haven't touched it," he assured her, "not a penny."

"On your honour?"

He rose silently and went to his desk, unlocked one of the drawers, and drew from a hidden place a thin strip of paper. He smoothed it out on the table before her.

"There's the deposit note," he said,—"Twenty thousand pounds to the joint or separate credit of Beatrice Wenderley and Douglas Romilly, on demand. The money's there still. I haven't touched it."

She gripped the paper in her fingers. The sight of the figures seemed to fascinate her. Then she looked around.

"How can you afford to live in a place like this, then?" she demanded suspiciously. "Where does your money come from?"

"The play," he told her.

"What, all this?" she exclaimed.

"It is a great success. The theatre is packed every night. My royalties come every week to far more than I could spend."

She looked once more around her, gripped the deposit note in her fingers, and leaned back in her chair. She laughed curiously. Her eyes had travelled back to Philip's anxious face.

"Wonderful!" she murmured. "You paid the price, but you've won. You've had something for it. I paid the price, and up till now—"

She stared at the paper in her hand. Then she looked away into the fire.

"I can't get it all into my head," she went on. "I pictured him here, living in luxury, spending the money of which he had promised me a share ... and he's dead! That was his body—that unrecognisable thing they found in the canal. You killed him—Douglas! He was so fond of life, too."

"Fond of the things which meant life to him," Philip muttered.

"I should never have believed that you had the courage," she observed ruminatingly. "After all, then, he wasn't faithless. He wasn't the brute I thought him."

She sat thinking for what seemed to him to be an interminable time. He broke in at last upon her meditations.

"Well," he asked, "what are you going to say to Dane?"

"I shan't give you away—at least I don't think so," she promised cautiously. "I shall see. Presently I will make terms, only this time I am not going to be left. I am going to have what I want."

"But he'll be waiting to hear from you!" Philip exclaimed. "He may come here, even."

She shook her head.

"He's gone to Chicago. He can't be back for five days. I promised to wire, but I shan't. I'll wait until he's back. And in the meantime—"

Her fingers closed upon the deposit note. He nodded shortly.

"That's yours," he said. "You can have it all. I have helped myself to a fresh start in life at his expense. That's all I wanted."

She folded up the paper and thrust it carefully into the bosom of her gown. Then she stood up.

"Well," she pronounced, "I think I am getting used to things. It's wonderful how callous one can become. The banks are closed now, I suppose?"

He nodded.

"They will be open at nine o'clock in the morning."

"First of all, then," she decided, "I'll make sure of my twenty thousand pounds, and then we'll see. I don't think you'll find me hard, Philip. I ought not to be hard on you, ought I?"

She looked at him most kindly, and he began to shiver. Curiously enough, her very kindness, when he realised the knowledge which lay behind her brain, was hateful to him. He had pleaded for her forgiveness, even her toleration, but—anything else seemed horrible! She strolled across the room and glanced at the clock, took one of his cigarettes from a box and lit it.

"Well, this is queer!" she murmured reflectively. "Now I want some dinner, and I'll see your play, Philip. You shall take me. Get ready quickly, please."

He looked at her doubtfully.

"But, Beatrice," he protested, "think! You know why you came here? You know the story you will have to tell? We are strangers, you and I. What if we are seen together?"

She snapped her fingers at him.

"Pooh! Who cares! I am a stranger in New York, and I have taken a fancy to you. You are a young man of gallantry, and you are going to take me out.... We often used to talk of a little excursion like this in London. We'll have it in New York instead."

He turned slowly towards the door of his bedroom. She was busy looking at her own eyes in the mirror, and she missed the little gleam of horror in his face.

"In ten minutes," he promised her.



CHAPTER XIII

Beatrice replaced the programme which she had been studying, on the ledge of the box, and turned towards Philip, who was seated in the background. There was something a little new in her manner. Her tone was subdued, her eyes curious.

"You really are a wonderful person, Philip," she declared. "It's the same play, just as you used to tell it me, word for word. And yet it isn't. What is it that you have gained, I wonder?—a sense of atmosphere, breadth, something strangely vital."

"I am glad you like it," he said simply.

"Like it? It's amazing! And what an audience! I never thought that the people were so fashionable here, Philip. I am sitting right back in the box, but ten minutes after I have cashed my draft tomorrow I shall be buying clothes. You won't be ashamed to be seen anywhere with me then."

He drew his chair up to her side, a little haggard and worn with the suspense of the evening. She laughed at him mockingly.

"What an idiot you are!" she exclaimed. "You ought to be one of the happiest men in the world, and you look like a death's-head."

"The happiest man in the world," he repeated.

"Beatrice, sometimes I think that there is only one thing in the world that makes for happiness."

"And what's that, booby?" she asked, with some of her old familiarity.

"A clear conscience."

She laid her hand upon his arm.

"Look here, Philip," she said, "the one thing I determined, when I threw up the sponge, was that whether the venture was a success or not I'd never waste a single moment in regrets. Things didn't turn out too brilliantly with me, as you know. But you—see what you've attained! Why, it's wonderful! Your play, the one thing you dreamed about, produced in one of the greatest cities in the world, and a packed house to listen to it, people applauding all the time. I didn't realise your success when we talked this evening. I am just beginning to understand. I've been reading some of these extracts from the newspapers. You're Merton Ware, the great dramatist, the coming man of letters. You've won, Philip. Can't you see that it's puling cowardice to grumble at the price?"

He, for his part, was wondering at her callousness, of which he was constantly discovering fresh evidences. The whole shock of her discovery seemed already, in these few hours, to have passed away.

"If you can forget—so soon," he muttered, "I suppose I ought to be able to."

She made a little grimace, but immediately afterwards he saw the cold tightening of her lips.

"Listen, Philip," she said. "I started life with the usual quiverful of good qualities, but there's one I've lost, and I don't want it back again. I'm a selfish woman, and I mean to stay a selfish woman. I am going to live for myself. I've paid a fair price, and I'm going to have what I've paid for. See?"

"Do you think," he asked, "that it is possible to make that sort of bargain with one's self and fate?"

She laughed scornfully.

"There's room for a little stiffening in you, even now, Philip! No one but a weakling ever talks about fate. You'd think better of me, I suppose, if I stayed in my room and wept. Well, I could do it if I let myself, but I won't. I should lose several hours of the life that belongs to me. You think I didn't care about Douglas? I am not at all sure that I didn't care for him as much as I ever did for you, although, of course, he wasn't worthy of it. But he's gone, and all the shudders and morbid regrets in the world won't bring him back again. And I am here in New York, and to-morrow I shall have twenty thousand pounds, and to-night I am with you, watching your play. That's life enough for me at present—no more, no less. I hate missing the first act, and I'm coming to see it again to-morrow. What time is it over?"

"Soon after eleven," he told her.

She glanced at her watch.

"You shall take me out and give me some supper," she decided, "somewhere where there's music."

He made no remark, but she surprised again something in his face which irritated her.

"Look here, Philip," she said firmly, "I won't have you look at me as though I were something inhuman. There are plenty of other women like me in the world, even if they are not quite so frank about it. I want to live, and I will live, and I grudge every moment out of which I am not extracting the fullest amount of happiness. That's because I've paid. It's the woman's bargaining instinct, you know. She wants to get value.... Now I want to hear about Miss Dalstan. Where did you meet her, and how did you get her to accept your play?"

"She was on the Elletania," he explained. "We crossed from Liverpool together. She sat at my table."

"How much does she know about you?" Beatrice asked bluntly.

"Everything," he confessed. "I don't know what I should have done without her. She has been the most wonderful friend any one could have."

Beatrice looked at him a little critically.

"You're a queer person, Philip," she exclaimed. "You're not fit to go about alone, really. Good thing I came over to take care of you, I think."

"You don't understand," he replied. "Miss Dalstan is—well, unlike anybody else. She wants to see you. I am to take you round after the next act, if you would like to go."

Beatrice smiled at him in a gratified manner.

"I've always wanted to go behind the scenes," she admitted. "I'll come with you, with pleasure. Perhaps if I decide that I'd like to go on the stage, she may be able to help me. How much is twenty thousand pounds in dollars, Philip?"

"A little over a hundred thousand," he told her.

"I don't suppose they think that much out here," she went on ruminatingly. "The hotel where Mr. Dane sent me—it's nice enough, in its way, but very stuffy as regards the people—is twice as expensive as it would be in London. However, we shall see."

The curtain rang up on the third act, and Beatrice, seated well back in the shadows, followed the play attentively, appreciated its good points and had every appearance of both understanding and enjoying it. Afterwards, she rose promptly to her feet, still clapping.

"I'm longing to meet Miss Dalstan, Philip," she declared. "She is wonderful. And to think that you wrote it—that you created the part for her! I am really quite proud of you."

She laughed at his embarrassment, affecting to ignore the fact that it was less the author's modesty than some queer impulse of horror which seemed to come over him when any action of hers reminded him of their past familiarity. He hurried on, piloting her down the corridor to the door of Elizabeth's dressing room. In response to his knock they were bidden to enter, and Elizabeth, who was lying on a couch whilst a maid was busy preparing her costume for the next act, held out her hand with a little welcoming smile.

"I am so glad to see you, Miss Wenderley," she said cordially. "Philip, bring Miss Wenderley over here. You'll forgive my not getting up, won't you? I have to rest for just these few minutes before the next act."

Beatrice was for a moment overpowered. The luxury of the wonderful dressing room, with its perfect French furniture, its white walls hung with a few choice sketches, the thick rugs upon the polished wood floor, the exquisite toilet table with its wealth of gold and tortoiseshell appurtenances—Elizabeth herself, so beautiful and gracious—even a hurried contemplation of all these things took her breath away. She felt suddenly acutely conscious of the poverty of her travelling clothes, of her own insignificance.

"Won't you sit down for a moment?" Elizabeth begged, pointing to a chair by her side. "You and I must be friends, you know, for Philip's sake."

Beatrice recovered herself a little. She sank into the blue satin chair, with its ample cushions, and looked down at Elizabeth with something very much like awe.

"I am sure Philip must feel very grateful to you for having taken his play," she declared. "It has given him a fresh chance in life."

"After all he has gone through," Elizabeth said gently, "he certainly deserves it. It is a wonderfully clever play, you know ... don't blush, Mr. Author!"

"I heard the story long ago," Beatrice observed, "only of course it sounded very differently then, and we never dreamed that it would really be produced."

"Philip has told me about those days," Elizabeth said. "I am afraid that you, too, have had your share of unhappiness, Miss Wenderley. I only hope that life in the future will make up to you something of what you have lost."

The girl's face hardened. Her lips came together in familiar fashion.

"I mean it to," she declared. "I am going to make a start to-morrow. I wish, Miss Dalstan, you could get Philip to look at things a little more cheerfully. He has been like a ghost ever since I arrived."

Elizabeth turned and smiled at him sympathetically.

"Your coming must have been rather a shock," she reminded Beatrice. "You came with the idea, did you not, that—you would find Mr. Douglas Romilly?"

The girl nodded and glanced around for the maid, who had disappeared, however, into an inner apartment.

"They were always alike," she confided,—"the same figures, same shaped head and that sort of thing. Douglas was a little overfond of life, though, and Philip here hasn't found out yet what it means. It was a shock, though, Miss Dalstan. Philip was sitting in the dark when I arrived at his rooms this evening, and—I thought it was Douglas."

Elizabeth shivered a little.

"Don't let us talk about it," she begged. "You must come and see me, won't you, Miss Wenderley? Philip will tell you where I live. Are you going back to England at once?"

"I haven't made up my mind yet," the girl replied, with a slight frown. "It just depends."

Elizabeth glanced at the little clock upon her table, and Philip threw away his cigarette and came forward.

"We must go, Beatrice," he announced. "Miss Dalstan has to change her dress for this act."

He held out his hand and Elizabeth rose lightly to her feet. So far, no word as to their two selves had passed their lips. She smiled at him and all this sense of throbbing, almost theatrical excitement subsided. He was once more conscious of the beautiful things beyond. Once more he felt the rest of her presence.

"You must let me see something of you tomorrow, Philip," she said. "Telephone, will you? Good night, Miss Wenderley."

The maid, who had just returned, held the door open. Philip glanced back over his shoulder. Elizabeth blew him a kiss, a gesture which curiously enough brought a frown to Beatrice's face.



CHAPTER XIV

The close of the performance left them both curiously tongue-tied. They waited until the theatre was half empty before they left their seats. Then they joined the little throng of stragglers at the end.

"Your play!" she murmured, as they faced the soft night air. "I can't believe it, even now. We've seen it together—your play—and this is New York! That's a new ending, isn't it?"

"Absolutely," he confessed. "The ending was always what bothered me, you know."

She laughed, not quite naturally. She was unexpectedly impressed.

"So you're a genius, after all," she went on. "Sometimes I wondered—but never mind that now. Philip, do you know I am starving? We took exactly ten minutes over dinner!"

He led her to a huge restaurant a few doors away, where they found a corner table. Up in the balcony an orchestra was playing light music, and a little crowd of people were all the time streaming through the doors. Beatrice settled herself down with an air of content. Few of the people were in evening dress, and the tone of the place was essentially democratic. Philip, who had learnt a little about American dishes, gave an order, and Beatrice sipped her cocktail with an air of growing appreciation.

"Queer idea, this, but the stuff tastes all right," she acknowledged. "I suppose, if you were taking your dear Miss Dalstan out, you'd go to a different sort of place, eh?"

"We generally go further up town," he admitted unthinkingly.

She set her glass down quickly.

"So you do take her out, do you?" she asked coldly. "You'd have been with her to-night, perhaps, if I hadn't been here?"

"Very likely."

She was half inclined to rally him, behind it all a little annoyed.

"You're a nice sort of person! Why, it's only a few months ago since you pretended to be in love with me!"

He looked at her, and her eyes fell before his.

"I don't think there was ever much question of our being in love with one another, was there? We simply seemed to have drifted together because we were both miserable, and then, as the time passed on—well, you came to be my only solace against the wretchedness of that life."

She nodded appreciatively. For a moment the sights and sounds of the noisy restaurant passed from her consciousness.

"Do you remember how glad I was to see you? How we used to spend our holidays out in those dingy fields and hope and pray for better things some day? But it was all so hopeless, wasn't it! You could barely keep yourself from starving, and I—oh, the misery of that awful Detton Magna and teaching those wretched children! There never were such children in the world. I couldn't get their mothers to send them clean. They seemed to have inherited all the vice, the bad language, the ugly sordidness with which the place reeked. They were old men and women in wickedness before they passed their first standard. It's a corner of the world I never want to see again. I'd rather find hell! Have you ordered any wine, Philip? I want to forget."

He pointed to the bottle which stood in the pail by their side, and summoned a waiter. She watched it being opened and their glasses filled.

"This is like one of our fairy stories of the old days, isn't it?" she said. "Well, I drink to you, Philip. Here's success to our new lives!"

She raised her glass and drained it. A woman had entered who reminded him of Elizabeth, and his eyes had wandered away for a moment as Beatrice pledged him. She called him back a little impatiently.

"Don't sit there as though you were looking at ghosts, Philip! Try and remember who I am and what we used to mean to one another. Let us try and believe," she added, a little wistfully, "that one of those dreams of ours which we used to set floating like bubbles, has come true. We can wipe out all the memories we don't want. That ought to be easy."

"Ought it?" he answered grimly. "There are times when I've found it difficult enough."

She laughed and looked about her. He realised suddenly that she was still very attractive with her rather insolent mouth, her clear eyes, her silky hair with the little fringe. People, as they passed, paid her some attention, and she was frankly curious about everybody.

"Well," she went on presently, "thank heavens I have plenty of will power. I remember nothing, absolutely nothing, which happened before this evening. I am going to tell myself that an uncle in Australia has died and left me money, and so we are here in New York to spend it. To-morrow I am going to begin. I shall buy clothes—all sorts of clothes—and hats. You won't know me to-morrow evening, Philip."

His heart sank. To-morrow evening!

"But Beatrice," he expostulated, "you don't think of staying out here, do you? You don't know a soul. You haven't a friend in the city."

"What friends have I in England?" she retorted. "Not one! I may just as well start a new life in a new country. It seems bright enough here, and gay. I like it. I shall move to a different sort of hotel to-morrow. You must help me choose one. And as to friends," she whispered, looking up at him with a little provocative gleam in her eyes, "don't you count? Can't you do what I am going to do, Philip? Can't you draw down that curtain?"

He shivered.

"I can't!" he muttered.

A waiter brought their first course, and she at once evinced interest in her food. She returned to the subject, however, later on, after she had drunk another glass of wine.

"You're a silly old thing, you know," she declared. "You found the courage, somehow, to break away from that loathsome existence. You had more courage, even, than I, because you ran a risk I never did. But here you are, free, with the whole world before you, and your last danger disappearing with the knowledge that I am ready to be your friend and am sensible about everything that has happened. This ought to be an immense relief to you, Philip. You ought to be the happiest man on earth. And there you sit, looking like a death's-head! Look at me for a moment like a human being, can't you? Drink some more wine. There must be some strength, some manhood about you somewhere, or you couldn't have done what you have done."

He filled his glass mechanically. She leaned across the table. Her eyes were bright, her cheeks delicately pink.

"Courage, Philip," she murmured. "Remember that what you did ... well, in a way it was for my sake, wasn't it?—for love of me? I am here now and we are both free. The old days are passed. Even their shadow cannot trouble us any longer. Don't be a sentimentalist. Listen and I'll tell you something—at the bottom of my heart I rather admire you for what you did. Don't you want your reward?"

"No," he answered firmly, "I don't!"

She shrugged her shoulders and kept time with her foot to the music. Across the table, although she kept silence for a while, she smiled at him whenever she caught his eye. She was not angry, not even hurt. Philip had always been so difficult, but in the end so easily led. She had unlimited confidence in herself.

"Don't be a goose!" she exclaimed at last. "Of course you want your reward, and of course you'll have it, some day! You've always lived with your head partly in the clouds, and it's always been my task to pull you down to earth. I suppose I shall have to do the same again, but to-night I haven't patience. I feel suddenly gay. You are so nice-looking, Philip, but you'd look ten times nicer still if you'd only smile once or twice and look as though you were glad."

The whole thing was a nightmare to him. The horror of it was in his blood, yet he did his best to obey. Plain speaking just then was impossible. He drank glass after glass of wine and called for liqueurs. She held his fingers for a moment under the table.

"Oh, Philip," she whispered, "can't you forget that you have ever been a school-teacher, dear? We are only human, and did suffer so. You know," she went on, "you were made for the things that are coming to us. You've improved already, ever so much. I like your clothes and the way you carry yourself. But you look—oh, so sad and so far away all the time! When I came to your rooms, at my first glimpse of you I knew that you were miserable. We must alter all that, dear. Tell me how it is that with all your success you haven't been happy?"

"Memories!" he answered harshly. "Only a few hours before you came, I was in hell!"

"Then you had better make up your mind," she told him firmly, "that you are going to climb up out of there, and when you're out, you're going to stay out. You can't alter the past. You can't alter even the smallest detail of its setting. Just as inevitably as our lives come and go, so what has happened is finished with, unchangeable. It is only a weak person who would spoil the present and the future, brooding. You used not to be weak, Philip."

"I don't think that I am, really," he said. "I am moody, though, and that's almost as bad. The sight of you brought it all back. And that fellow Dane—I've been frightened of him, Beatrice."

"Well, you needn't be any longer," she declared. "What you want is some one with you all the time who understands you, some one to drive back those other thoughts when they come to worry you. It is really a very good thing for you, dear, that I came out to New York. Mr. Dane is going to be very disappointed when I tell him that I never saw you before in my life.... Don't you love the music? Listen to that waltz. That was written for happy people, Philip. I adore this place. I suppose we shall find others that we like better, as time goes on, but I shall always think of this evening. It is the beginning of my task, too, Philip, with you—for you. What has really happened, dear? I can't realise anything. I feel as though the gates of some great prison had been thrown wide-open, and everything there was to long for in life was just there, within reach, waiting. I am glad, so much gladder than I should have imagined possible. It's wonderful to have you again. I didn't even feel that I missed you so much, but I know now what it was that made life so appalling. Tell me, am I still nice to look at?"

"Of course you are," he assured her. "Can't you understand that by the way people notice you?"

She strummed upon the table with her fingers. Her whole body seemed to be moving to the music. She nodded several times.

"I don't want them to notice me, Philip," she murmured. "I want you to look just for a moment as though you thought me the only person in the world—as you did once, you know."

He did his best to be responsive, but he was not wholly successful. Nevertheless, she was tolerant with his shortcomings. They sat there until nearly three o'clock. It was she at last who rose reluctantly to her feet.

"I want to go whilst the memory of it all is wonderful," she declared. "Come. Here's a card with my address on. Drive me home now, please."

He paid his bill and they found a cab. She linked her arm through his, her head sank a little upon his shoulder. He made no movement. She waited for a moment, then she leaned back amongst the cushions.

"Philip," she asked quietly, "has this Elizabeth Dalstan been letting you make love to her?"

"Please don't speak of Miss Dalstan like that," he begged.

"Answer my question," she insisted.

"Miss Dalstan has been very kind to me," he admitted slowly, "wonderfully kind. If you really want to know, I do care for her."

"More than you did for me?"

"Very much more," he answered bravely, "and in a different fashion."

In the darkness of the cab it seemed to him that her face had grown whiter. Her arm remained within his but it clasped him no longer. Her body seemed to have become limp. Even her voice, firm though it was, seemed pitched in a different key.

"Listen," she said. "You will have to forget Miss Dalstan. I have made up my mind what I want in life and I am going to have it. I shall draw my money to-morrow morning and afterwards I shall come straight to your rooms. Then we will talk. I want more than just that money. I am lonely. And do you know, Philip, I believe that I must have cared for you all the time, and you—you must have cared for me a little or you would never have done that for my sake. You must and you shall care, Philip, because our time has come, and I want you, please—shall I have to say it, dear?—I want you to marry me."

He wrenched himself free from her.

"That is quite out of the question, Beatrice," he declared.

She laughed at him mockingly.

"Oh, don't say that, Philip! You might tempt me to be brutal. You might tempt me to speak horribly plain words to you."

"Speak them and have done with it," he told her roughly. "I might find a few, too."

"I am past hurting," she replied, "and I am not in the least afraid of anything you could say. You robbed me of the man who was bringing me to America—who would have married me some day, I suppose. Well, you must pay, do you see, and in my way? I have told you the way I choose."

"You want me to marry you?" he demanded—"simply marry you? You do not care whether I have any love for you or whether I loathe you now."

"You couldn't loathe me, could you?" she begged. "The thought of those long days we spent together in our prison house would rise up and forbid it. Kiss me."

"I will not!"

Her lips sought his, in vain. He pushed her away.

"Don't you understand?" he exclaimed. "There is another woman whom I have kissed—whom I am longing to kiss now."

"But we are old friends," she pleaded, "and I am lonely. Kiss me how you like. Don't be foolish."

He kissed her upon the cheek. She pulled down her veil. The cab had stopped before the door of her hotel.

"You are not to worry any more about ugly things, Philip," she whispered, holding his hand for a moment as he rang the bell for her. "You are safe, remember—quite safe. I've come to take care of you. You need it so badly.... Good night, dear!"



CHAPTER XV

Late though it was when Philip reached his rooms, he found on his writing table a message addressed to him from the telephone call office in the building. He tore it open:

"Kindly ring up Number 551 Avenue immediately you return, whatever the time."

He glanced at the clock, hesitated, and finally approaching the instrument called up Elizabeth's number. For a few moments he waited. The silence in the streets outside seemed somehow to have become communicated to the line, the space between them emptied of all the jarring sounds of the day. It was across a deep gulf of silence that he heard at last her voice.

"Yes? Is that you, Philip?"

"I am here," he answered. "I am sorry it is so late."

"Have you only just come in?"

"This moment."

"Has that girl kept you out till now?" she asked reprovingly.

"I couldn't help it," he replied. "It was her first night over here. I took her to Churchill's for supper."

"Is everything—all right with her? She doesn't mean to make trouble?"

The unconscious irony of the question almost forced a smile to his lips.

"I don't think so," he answered. "She is thoroughly excited at the idea of possessing the money. I believe she thought that Douglas would have drawn it all. She is going straight to the bank, early in the morning, to get hold of it."

"What about the man Dane?"

"He has gone to Chicago. He won't be back for several days."

There was a moment's pause.

"Have you anything to ask me?" she enquired.

"Nothing."

"I have had the most extraordinary letter from Sylvanus. You and he have met."

"Yes," he admitted.

"Philip, we must make up our minds."

"You mean that you must make up your mind," he answered gently.

There was another silence. Then she spoke a little abruptly.

"I wonder whether you really love me, Philip.... No! don't, please—don't try to answer such a foolish question. Go to bed and sleep well now. You've had a trying day. Good night, dear!"

He had barely time to say good night before he heard the ring off. He set down the receiver. Somehow, there was a sensation of relief in having been, although indirectly, in touch with her. The idea of the letter from Sylvanus Power affected him only hazily. The crowded events of the day had somehow or other dulled his power of concentrated thought. He felt a curious sense of passivity. He undressed without conscious effort, closed his eyes, and slept until he was awakened by the movements of the valet about the room.

Philip was still seated over his breakfast, reading the paper and finishing his coffee, when the door was thrown suddenly open, and Beatrice entered tumultuously. She laughed at his air of blank surprise.

"You booby!" she exclaimed. "I couldn't help coming in to wish you good morning. I have just discovered that my hotel is quite close by here. Lucky, isn't it, except that I am going to move. Good morning, Mr. Serious Face!" she went on, leaning towards him, her hands behind her, her lips held out invitingly.

He set down his paper, kissed her on the cheek, and looked inside the coffeepot.

"Have you had your breakfast?"

"Hours ago. I was too excited to sleep when I got to bed, and yet I feel so well. Philip, where's Wall Street? Won't you take me there?"

He shook his head.

"I am expecting a visitor, and I have piles of work to do."

She made a grimace.

"I know I shall be terrified when I march up to the counter of the bank and say I've come for twenty thousand pounds!"

"You must transfer it to a current account," he explained, "in your own name. Have you any papers with you—for identification, I mean?"

She nodded.

"I've thought of all that. I've a photograph and a passport and some letters. It isn't that I'm really afraid, but I hate being alone, and you look so nice, Philip dear. I always loved you in blue serge, and I adore your eyeglass. You really have been clever in the small things you have done to change your appearance. Perhaps you are right not to come, though," she went on, looking in the mirror. "These clothes are the best I could get at a minute's notice. Mr. Dane was really quite nice, but he hadn't the least idea how long it takes a woman to prepare for a journey. Never mind, you wait until I get back here this afternoon! I am going round to all the shops, and I am going to bring the clothes I buy away with me. Then I am going to lock myself in my room and change everything. I am going to have some of those funny little patent shoes, and silk stockings—and, oh, well, all sorts of things you wouldn't understand about. And do try and cheer up before I get back, please, Philip. Twelve months ago you would have thought all this Paradise. Oh, I can't stop a moment longer!" she wound up, throwing away the cigarette she had taken from the box and lit. "I'm off now. And, Philip, don't you dare to go out of these rooms until I come back!"

She turned towards the door—she was half-way there, in fact—when they were both aware of a ring at the bell. She stopped short and looked around enquiringly.

"Who's that?" she whispered.

Philip glanced at the clock. It was too early for Elizabeth.

"No idea," he answered. "Come in."

The door opened and closed. Philip sat as though turned to stone. Beatrice remained in the middle of the room, her fingers clasping the back of a chair. Mr. Dane, hat in hand, had entered.

"Good morning, Miss Wenderley!" he said. "Good morning, Mr. Ware!"

Philip said nothing. He had a horrible feeling that this was some trap. Beatrice at first could only stare at the unexpected visitor. His sudden appearance had disconcerted her.

"I thought you were in Chicago, Mr. Dane!" she exclaimed at last.

"My plans were altered at the last moment," he told her. "No, I won't sit down, thanks," he added, waving away the chair towards which Philip had pointed. "As a matter of fact, I haven't been out of New York. I decided to wait and hear your news, Miss Wenderley."

"Well, you're going to be disappointed, then," she said bluntly. "I haven't any."

Mr. Dane was politely incredulous. He was also a little stern.

"You mean," he protested, "that you cannot identify this gentleman—that you don't recognise him as Mr. Douglas Romilly?"

"I cannot identify him," she repeated. "He is not Mr. Douglas Romilly."

"I have brought you all this way, then, to confront you with a stranger?"

"Absolutely," she insisted. "It wasn't my fault. I didn't want to come."

Mr. Dane's expression suddenly changed. His hard knuckles were pressed upon the table, he leaned forward towards her. Even his tone was altered. His blandness had all vanished, his grey eyes were as hard as steel.

"A stranger!" he exclaimed derisively. "Yet you come here to his rooms early in the evening, you stay here, you go to the theatre with him the same night, you go on to supper at Churchill's and stay there till three o'clock in the morning, you are here with him again at nine o'clock—at breakfast time. A stranger, Miss Wenderley? Think again! A story like this might do for Scotland Yard. It won't do for us out here."

She knew at once that she had fallen into a trap, but she was not wholly dismayed. The position was one which they had half anticipated. She told herself that he was bluffing, that it was simply the outburst of a disappointed man. On the whole, she behaved extraordinarily well.

"You brought me out here," she said, "to confront me with this man—to identify him, if I could, as Mr. Douglas Romilly. Well, he isn't Mr. Douglas Romilly, and that's all there is about it. As to my going out with him last evening, I can't see that that's any concern of any one. He was kind to me, cheered me up when he saw that I was disappointed; I told him my whole story and that I didn't know a soul in New York, and we became friends. That's all there is about it."

"That so?" the detective observed, with quiet sarcasm. "You seem to have a knack of making friends pretty easily, Miss Wenderley."

"It is not your business if I have," she snapped.

"Well, we'll pass that, then," he conceded. "I haven't quite finished with you yet, though. There are just one or two more points I am going to put before you—and this gentleman who is not Mr. Douglas Romilly," he added, with a little bow to Philip. "The first is this. There is one fact which we can all three take for granted, because I know it—I can prove it a hundred times over—and you both know it; and that is that the Mr. Merton Ware of to-day travelled from Liverpool on the Elletania as Mr. Douglas Romilly, occupied a room at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel as Mr. Douglas Romilly, and absconded from there, leaving his luggage and his identity behind him, to blossom out in an attic of the Monmouth tenement house as Mr. Merton Ware, a young writer of plays. Now I don't think," Mr. Dane went on, leaning a little further over the table, "that the Mr. Douglas Romilly who has disappeared was ever capable of writing a play. I don't think he was a man of talent at all. I don't think he could have written, for instance, 'The House of Shams.' Let us, however, leave the subject of Douglas Romilly for a moment. Let us go a little further back—to Detton Magna, let us say. Curiously enough, there was another young man who disappeared from that little Derbyshire village about the same time, who has never been heard of since. His name, too, was Romilly. I gathered, during the course of my recent enquiries, that he was a poor relation, a cousin of Mr. Douglas Romilly."

"He was drowned in the canal," Beatrice faltered. "His body has been found."

"A body has been found," Mr. Dane corrected, "but it was in an unrecognisable state. It has been presumed to be the body of Philip Romilly, the poor relation, a starving young art teacher in London with literary aspirations—but I hold that that presumption is a mistake. I believe," the detective went on, his eyes fastened upon Philip, his voice a little raised, "that it was the body of Douglas Romilly, the shoe manufacturer, which was fished out from the canal, and that you, sir, are Mr. Philip Romilly, late art-school teacher of Kensington, who murdered Douglas Romilly on the banks of the canal, stole his money and pocketbook, assumed his identity in Liverpool and on the Elletania, and became what you are now—Mr. Merton Ware."

Philip threw away the cigarette which he had been smoking, and, leaning over the box, carefully selected another. He tapped it against the table and lit it.

"Mr. Dane," he said coolly, "I shall always be grateful to you for your visit this morning, for you have given me what is the most difficult thing in the whole world to stumble up against—an excellent idea for a new play. Apart from that, you seem, for so intelligent a man, to have wasted a good deal of your time and to have come, what we should call in English, a cropper. I will take you into my confidence so far as to admit that I am not particularly anxious to disclose my private history, but if ever the necessity should arise I shall do so without hesitation. Until that time comes, you must forgive me if I choose to preserve a certain reticence as to my antecedents."

Mr. Dane, in the moment's breathless silence which followed, acknowledged to himself the perpetration of a rare mistake. He had selected Philip to bear the brunt of his attack, believing him to be possessed of the weaker nerve. Beatrice, who at the end of his last speech had sunk into a chair, white and terrified, an easy victim, had rallied now, inspired by Philip's composure.