Last night Helen had driven over quietly to Buddesby, and she and Constance had had a long talk.

"I can't leave Joan alone. I have written to Jessie, telling her that I shall start in three months. I have said nothing to Joan yet; but, Connie, I can't leave her alone!"

"Helen, do you think she could care for Johnny enough to become his wife?"

"I believe she is fond of him. I will not say that I think she is desperately in love, but she likes him and trusts him, as she must; and so, Connie, I hope it may come about. Joan will make an ideal wife. He is all a woman could wish and hope for, the truest, dearest, straightest man living, and so—Connie—I hope—"

"I will talk to him to-night, and I will suggest that he comes over to-morrow and puts his fate to the test. I know he loves her."

And to-day Johnny Everard should be here, if he had listened to his sister's advice, and that was a thing that Johnny ever did, save in the matter of hops.

There was a look of subdued eagerness, of visible nervousness and uncertainty, about Mr. John Everard that day. And Helen saw it.

"Joan's in the garden, John," she said.

"Yes, I—" He fumbled nervously with his hands.

"Helen, I have been talking to Con, at least Con's been talking to me!"

"Yes, dear?"

"And she—she says—Con tells me that there is a chance for me—just a chance, Helen. And, Helen, I don't want to spoil my chance, if I have one, by rushing in. You understand?"

"I think," Helen said, "that Joan would like you the better and admire you the more for being brave enough to speak out."

"That's it! I've got to speak out. You know I love her!"

"I do, dear."

"But she doesn't love me. It is not likely; how could she? Look at me, a great ugly chap—how could such a girl care for me?"

"I think any girl might very easily care for you, Johnny!"

"An ugly brute like me? A farmer. I am nothing more, Helen, and—and—"

"Johnny, she is in the garden. Go to her; take your courage in both your hands. Remember—

'He either fears his fate too much. Or his deserts are small, That dares not put it to the touch, To gain or lose it all.'"

"I'll go!" Johnny Everard said. "I can but lose, eh? That's the worst that can happen to me—lose. But, by Heaven! if I do lose, it is going to—to hurt, and hurt badly. Helen dear, wish me luck!"

She put both her hands on his broad shoulders and kissed him on the forehead. She felt to him as a mother might.

"From my heart, Johnny, I wish you luck and fortune and happiness," she said.

Joan was at the far end of the wide, far-spreading garden. She was seated on a bench beside a pool where grew water-lilies, and where in the summer sunshine the dragon-flies skimmed on the placid surface of the green water—water that now and again was broken into a ripple by the quick twist of the tail of one of the fat old carp that lived their humdrum, adventureless years in the quiet depths.

She sat here, chin in hand, grey eyes watching the pool, yet seeing nothing of its beauties, and her thoughts away, away with a man who had insulted her, had brought trouble and shame and anger to her—a man to whom she had appealed, and had appealed in vain; a man dead to all manhood, a man she hated—yes, hated—for often she told herself so, and it must be true.

And then suddenly she heard the fall of a footstep on the soft turf behind her, and, turning, looked into the face of a man whose eyes were filled with love for her.

So for one long moment they looked at one another, and the colour rose in the girl's cheeks, and into her eyes there came a wistful regret. For she knew why this man was here. She knew what he had to say to her, to ask of her, here by the green pool.



CHAPTER XXIV

"—TO GAIN, OR LOSE IT ALL"

"Take your courage in both hands" Helen had said to him, and he was doing so; but Johnny Everard knew himself for a coward at this moment.

He felt tongue-tied, more than usually awkward, terribly and shamefully nervous. Yet the grey eyes were on his face, and he knew that he must speak, must put all to the hazard. And he knew also that if to-day he lost her, it would be the biggest and the blackest sorrow of his life, something that he would never live down, never forget.

Oh, it was worth fighting for, worth taking his courage in both hands for, this girl with the sweet, serious face and the tender mouth, the great, enquiring, yet trusting grey eyes. He had seen her cold, stately, a little unapproachable, but he had never seen scorn in those eyes. He had never seen the red lips curled with contempt. He knew nothing of her in this guise, as another man did.

And now the girl seemed to be all woman, tender, sympathetic, and the courage came to him; he sate himself beside her and took her hand in his, and it gave him hope that she did not draw it away.

What he said, how he said it, how he stumbled over his story of love and devotion he never knew. But it was an honest story, a story that did him honour, and did honour too to the woman he told it to.

"I love you, dear. I have loved you from the moment I first saw you. I know you are high above me. I know what I am, an unlovely sort of fellow, rough and—and not fit to touch your hand—" for, being deeply in love, his opinion of himself had naturally sunk to zero. The perfection of the beloved object always makes an honest man painfully conscious of his own inferiority and unworthiness. And so it was with Johnny Everard, this day beside the green pool. And the slim, cool hand was not withdrawn.

"Johnny, what are you asking me? Why have you come here to me? What do you want—of me?" she asked, yet did not look him in the face, but sat with eyes resting on the placid water.

"Just to tell you that—to tell you how I love you, Joan."

Another man had told her that; the echo of his words came back to her from the past. How often those words of his had come back; she could never forget them. Yet she told herself that she hated him who had uttered them, hated him, for was he not a proved craven?

("If, in telling you that I love you, is a sin fast all forgiveness, I glory in it. I take not one word of it back.")

And now another, a worthier, better man, was telling her the same story, holding her hand, and, she knew, looking into her face; yet her eyes did not meet his.

And, listening to him, her heart grew more bitter than ever before to the man who had uttered those words she would never forget, bitter against him, yet more against herself. For she was conscious of shame and anger—at her woman's weakness, at the folly of which her woman's heart was capable.

"I know I am not fit for you, not good enough for you, Joan. There isn't a man living who would be—but—I love you—dear, and with God's help I would try to make you a happy woman."

Manly words, honest and sincere, she knew, as must be all that this man said and did—a man to rely on, a very tower of strength; a man to protect her, a man to whom she could take her troubles and her secrets, knowing full well that he would not fail her.

And while these thoughts passed in her mind she sat there silently, her hand in his, and never thought to draw it away.

"Joan, will you be my wife, dear? I am asking for more than I could ever deserve. There is nothing about me that makes me worthy of that great happiness and honour, save one thing—my love for you."

"And yet," she said, and broke her silence for the first time, "there is one question that you do not ask me, Johnny."

"One question?"

"You do not ask me if I love you!"

"How can I ask for the impossible, the unlikely? There is nothing in me for such a girl as you to love."

"There is much in you for any woman to love. There is honesty and truth and bravery, and a clean sweet mind. I know all that, I know that you are a good man, Johnny. I know that; but oh, I do not love you!"

"I know," he said sadly. "I know that." And his hand seemed to slip away from hers.

"And you would not—not take me—Johnny, without love?" she asked, and her voice trembled.

"Joan, I—I don't understand. I am a foolish, dense fellow, dear, and I don't understand!"

She turned to him, and now her eyes met his frankly, and never had he seen them so soft, so tender, so filled with a strange and wonderful light, the light that is born of tenderness and sympathy and kindliness.

"Would you make me your wife, Johnny, knowing that I—I do not love you as a woman should love the man she takes for her husband."

"I—I would try to teach you, dear. I would try to win a little of your heart."

"And that would content you, Johnny?"

"It must. I dare not ask too much, and I—I—love you so!"

("I glory in it. I take not one word of it lack!")

Hateful words, words she could never forget, that came back to torture and fill her with a sense of shame. Strange that they were dinning in her memory, even now.

("I glory in it. I take not one word back!")

And then suddenly she made a gesture, as to fling off remembrance. She turned more fully to him, and her eyes met his frankly.

"I do not love you, dear, as a woman should love the man she mates with; but I like you. I honour you and trust you, and if—if you will take me as I am, not asking for too much, not asking, dear, for more than I can give—"

"Joan," he said, "my Joan!"

She bent her head.

"If you will take me—as I am, not asking for more than I can give, then—then I will come to you, if you will have it so. But oh, my dear, you are worth more than this, far more than this!"

He lifted her hand and held it to his lips, the only embrace that in his humility he dare offer her. And even while she felt his lips upon her hand, there came back to her memory eyes that glowed with love and passion, a deep voice that shook with feeling—

("I glory in it, and take not one word of it back!")



CHAPTER XXV

IN THE MIRE

Women, chattering over their tea in the lounge of the Empire Hotel, followed the tall restless young man with their eyes. He was worth looking at, so big and fine, and bronzed, and so worried, so anxious-looking, poor fellow.

Four o'clock, a quarter past, half past. She would not come. Of course she would not come; he had offended past all forgiveness in taking so long to reply to her appeal. Hugh Alston cursed the unlucky star that he must have been born under.

Two middle-aged women, seated at a small table, taking their tea after strenuous shopping at the sales, watched him and discussed him frankly.

"Evidently here to meet someone!"

"And she hasn't come!"

"You can see how disappointed he looks, poor fellow."

"Too bad of her!"

"My dear, what some men can see in some women..."

"And a girl who would keep a man like that waiting deserves to lose him."

"I hope she does. See, he's going now. I hope she comes later and is disappointed."

"Oh no, I think that must be she. What a handsome girl, but how cold and proud looking!"

She had come, even as he was giving up in despair. As he turned to leave, she came, and they met face to face.

The two amiable busybodies sipped their tea and watched.

"My dear, she didn't even offer him her hand—such a cold and stately bow. They can't be lovers, after all!"

"I don't think I ever saw a more lovely girl!"

"But icily cold. That pink chiffon I bought at Robinson's will make up into a charming evening dress for Irene, don't you think?"

"I am afraid I am late," Joan said, and her voice was clear and cold, expressionless as a voice could be.

"Surely I deserve that at least, after the unforgivable delay in answering your letter."

"Yes," she said, "you—you were a long time answering." And suddenly she realised what that delay had meant.

Yesterday, if his answer had come, perhaps she would not have done as she had done. But it was done now, past recall.

"I was away. I found Hurst Dormer irksome and lonely. Lady Linden came over; she invited me to stay at Cornbridge," he explained. "So I went, and no letters were forwarded. Yours came within a few hours of my leaving. I hope you understand that if I had had it—"

"You would have answered it before, Mr. Alston? Yes, I am glad to feel the neglect was not intentional."

"Intentional!"

"I—I thought, judging from the manner in which we last parted, and what you then said to me, that you—you preferred not to—see me again."

"I was hurt then, hurt and bitter. I had no right to say what I said. I ask you to accept my apologies, Joan."

She started a little at the sound of her name, but did not look at him.

"Perhaps you were right. I have thought it over since. Yes, I think I acted meanly; it was a thing a woman would do. That is where a woman fails—in small things—ideas, mean ideas come to her mind, just like that one. A man would not think such things. Yes, I am ashamed by the smallness of it. You said 'ungenerous.' I think a better expression would have been 'mean-spirited.'"

"Joan!"

"But we need not discuss that. We owe one another apologies. Shall we take it that they are offered and accepted?"

He nodded. "Tea?" he asked, "or coffee?" For the hotel servant had come for his orders.

"Tea, please," she said; "and—and this time I will not ask for the bill." The faintest flicker of a smile crossed her lips, and then was gone, and he thought that in its place a look of weariness and unhappiness came into the girl's face.

She had sent for him to ask his help. His letter had only reached her that morning, and when she had read it, she had asked herself, "Shall I go? Shall I see him?" And had answered "No! It is over; I do not need his help now. I have someone else to whom I must turn for help, someone who will give it readily."

And yet she had come—that is the way of women. And because she had come, she would still ask his help, and not ask it of that other. For surely he who had brought all this trouble on to her should be the one to clear her path?

The waiter brought the tea, and Hugh leaned back and watched her as she poured it out. And, watching her, there came to him a vision of the bright morning room at Hurst Dormer, a vision of all the old familiar things he had known since boyhood: and in that vision, that day-dream, he saw her sitting where his mother once had sat, and she was pouring out tea, even as now.

A clearer, stronger vision this than any he had had in the old days of Marjorie. He smiled at the thought of those dreams, so utterly broken and dead and wafted away into the nothingness of which they had been built.

"You sent for me to help you?"

"Yes!" A tinge of colour rose in her cheeks and waxed till her cheeks and even her throat were flooded with a brilliant, glorious flush, and then, suddenly as it had come, it died away again, leaving her whiter than before.

"I wanted your help. I felt that I had a right to ask it, seeing that you—you—"

"Have caused you trouble and annoyance? You wrote that," he said.

She bowed her head.

"What you did, has brought more trouble, more shame, more annoyance to me than I can ever explain. I do not ask you to tell me why you did it—it was cruel and mean, unmanly; but you did it. And it can never be undone, so I ask for no reasons, no explanations. They—they do not interest me now. You have brought me trouble and—even danger—and so I turned to you, to ask your help. I have the right, have I not the right—to demand it?"

"The greatest right on earth," he said. "Joan, how can I help you?"

But she did not answer immediately, for the answer would be difficult.

"When you played with a woman's name," she said, "you played with the most fragile, the most delicate and easily breakable thing there is. Do you realise that? A woman's fair name is her most sacred possession, and yet you played with mine, used it for your own purpose, and so have brought me to shame and misery."

"Joan," he leaned towards her, "how—how—tell me how?"

"Three days ago," she said quietly, "I submitted and paid three thousand pounds blackmail, rather than that your name and mine, linked together, should be dragged in the mire!"

It was almost as though those white hands of hers had struck him a heavy blow between the eyes. Hugh sat and stared at her in amaze.

Her words seemed obscure, scarcely possible to understand, yet he had gathered in the sense of them.

"Three days ago I submitted and paid three thousand pounds blackmail rather than your name and mine, linked together, should be dragged in the mire."

A girl might well shrink to tell a man what she must tell him, to go into explanations that were an offence to the purity of her mind. Yet, listening to her, looking at her, at the pale, proud young face, white as marble, Hugh Alston knew that he had never admired and reverenced her as he did now.

"The story that you told of our marriage, that lie that I can never understand, passed from lip to lip. Many have heard it; it has caused many to wonder. I do not ask why you uttered it. It does not matter now, nothing matters, save that you did utter it, and it has gone abroad. Then one day you came to the office where I was employed, and the man who employed me put his private room at your disposal, knowing that by means of some spyhole he had contrived he could hear all that passed between us. And then you offered me marriage—by way of atonement. Do you remember? You offered to—to atone by marrying me."

"In my mad, presumptuous folly, Joan!"

"And it was overheard; the man heard all. He did not understand—how should he? His vile mind grasped at other meanings. He went down to Marlbury and to Morchester to make enquiries, to look for an entry in a register that was never made. He went to General Bartholomew and then Cornbridge, where he saw Lady Linden, and heard from her all that she had to tell, and then—then he came to me. He told me that he knew the truth, and that if I would marry him he would forgive—forgive everything!"

Hugh Alston said nothing. He sat with his big hands gripped hard, and thinking of Philip Slotman a red fury passed like a mist before his eyes.

"I told him to go, and then came a letter from him, a friendly letter, a letter that could not cause him any trouble. He assured me of his friendship and of his—silence, you understand, his silence—and asked me as a friend to lend him three thousand pounds. It was blackmail—oh, I knew that. I hesitated, and did not know what to do. There was none to whom I could turn—no one. I had no friend. Helen Everard is only a friend of a few short weeks. I felt that I could not go to her, I felt somehow that she would never understand. And then—then at last, because, I suppose, I am a woman and therefore a coward, and because I was so alone—so helpless—I sent the money."

"Oh, that I—"

"Remember," she said, "remember I had written to you, asking your help. I had waited days, and no answer had come. I had no right to believe that I could ask your help."

"Joan, Joan, didn't you know that you could? Have you forgotten what I told you once—that stands true to-day as then, will stand true to the last hour of my life. I have brought shame and misery on you, God forgive me—yet unintentionally, Joan." He leaned forward, and grasped at her hand and held it, though she would have drawn it free of him. "I told you that I loved you that night. I love you now—my love for you gives me the right to protect you!"

"You have no rights, no rights," she said, and drew her hand away.

"Because you will not give me those rights. I asked you to marry me once. I came to you, thinking in my small soul that I was doing a fine thing, offering atonement—my—my very words, atonement—for the evil I had unwittingly done. And you refused to accept the prize!" He laughed bitterly. "You refused with scorn, just scorn, Joan. You made me realise that I had but added to my offence. I—I to offer you marriage, in my lordly way, when I should have sued on my knees to you for forgiveness, as I would sue now, humbly and contritely, offering love and love alone—love and worship and service to the end of my days, as please Heaven I shall sue, Joan."

"You cannot!" she said quietly. "You cannot, and if you should, the answer will be the same, as then!"

"Because you can never forgive?"

"Because I have no power to give what you would ask for!"

"Your love?"

She did not answer. She turned her face away, for she knew she could not in truth say "No" to that, for the knowledge that she had been trying to stifle was with her now, the knowledge that meant that she could not love the man whose wife she had promised to be.

"My—my hand—" she said.

And he, not understanding for the moment, looked at her, and then suddenly understanding came to him.

"You—you mean?"

"You—you did not answer my letter, and I—I waited," she said, and her voice was low and muffled. There was no pride in her face now; all its hardness, all its bitterness and scorn were gone.

"I waited and waited—and thought—hoped," she said, "and nothing came. And yesterday a man—a man I like and admire, a fine man, a good man, honest and noble, a man who—who loves me better than I deserve, came to me—and—and so to-day it is too late! Though," she cried, with a touch of scorn for herself, "it would have made no difference—nothing would have made any difference. You—you understand that I scarcely know what I am saying!"

"You have given your promise to another man?" he asked quietly.

"Yes!"

"And you do not love him?"

"He's a man," she cried, "a man who would not make a jest of a woman's name."

"And even so, you do not love him, because that would not be possible."

"You have no right to say that," and she wrenched her hand free.

"I have the right, the right you gave me."

"I—I gave you no right."

"You have. You gave me that right, Joan, when you gave me your heart. You do not love that man, because you love me!"

Back into the white face came all the hardness and coldness that he so well knew. She rose; she looked down on him.

"It is—untrue. I do not. I have but one feeling for you always—always—the same, the one feeling. I despise you. How could I love a thing that I despise?"

And, knowing that it was a lie, she dared not meet the scrutiny of his eyes, and turned quickly away.

"Joan!" he said. He would have followed her, but then came the waiter with his bill, and he was forced to stay, and when he reached the street she was gone.

"I quite thought that they were going to make it up, and then it seemed that they quarrelled again," one of the ladies at the other table said.

The other nodded. "I think that they do not know their own minds, young people seldom do. I wish I had bought three yards more of that cerise ninon. It would have made up so well for Violet, don't you think?"



CHAPTER XXVI

MR. ALSTON CALLS

Mr. Philip Slotman sat in his office; he was slowly deciphering a letter, ill-written and badly spelled.

"DEAR SIR,

"According to promise I am writing to you hopeing it finds you as it leaves me at present. Dear sir, having some news I am writing to tell you saime. Yesterday Mr. John Everard of Buddesby was here and him and Miss Jone was in the garden for a long time. I seen them from my window, but could not get near enuff to hear. Anyhow I see him kissing her hand. Laiter, after he had gone, I seen Miss Jone and Mrs. Everard together, and listened as best I could. From what I heard I imadgined that Miss Jone and Mr. John Everard is now engaged to be married, which Mrs. Everard seems very pleased to hear.

"This morning Miss Jone gets a letter and the postmark is Hurst Dormer, like you told me to look out for. She is now gone to London. Please send money in accordance with promise and I will write and tell you all the news as soon as there is any more.

"Youres truley, "MISS ALICE BETTS."

The door opened, a boy clerk came in. Slotman thrust the letter he had been reading into an open drawer.

"What is it? What do you want?"

"A gentleman to see you, sir. Mr. Alston from—"

"I can't see him!" Slotman said quickly. "Tell him I am out, and that—"

"I am already here, and you are going to see me." Hugh Alston came in. "You can go!" to the boy, who hesitated. "You hear me, you can go!"

Hugh closed the door after the lad.

"You're not going to be too busy to see me this morning, Slotman, for I have interesting things to discuss with you."

"I am a busy man," Slotman began nervously.

"Very!" said Hugh—"very, so I hear."

He stepped into the room, and faced Slotman across the paper-littered table.

"I have been hearing about some of your enterprises," he said, and there was that in his face that caused Mr. Slotman a feeling of insecurity and uneasiness. "One of them is blackmail!"

"How dare—" Slotman began, with an attempt at bluster.

"That's what I am here for; to dare. You have been blackmailing a young lady whose name we need not mention. You have obtained the sum of three thousand pounds from her, by means of threats. I want that money—and more; I want a declaration from you that you will never molest her again; for if you do—if you do—"

Hugh's face was not good to see, and Mr. Slotman quivered uneasily in his chair.

"The—the money was lent to me. Miss Meredyth worked for me, and—and I went to her, explaining that my business was in a precarious condition, and she very kindly lent me the money. And I haven't got it, Mr. Alston. I'll swear I haven't a penny of it left. I could not repay it if I wanted to; it—it was a friendly loan."

Slotman leaned back in his chair; he looked at Hugh.

"You have done me a cruel wrong, Mr. Alston," he said, in the tone of a deeply injured man. "Miss Meredyth worked for me, and while she was here I respected her, even more." He paused. "At any rate I respected her. She attracted me, and, I will confess it, I fell in love with her. She was poor; she had nothing then to tempt a fortune hunter, and thank Heaven I can say I was never that. I asked her to be my wife, no man could do more, no man could act more honourably. You'll admit that, eh? You must admit that?"

"And she refused you?"

"Not—not definitely. It was too good an offer for a girl in her position to refuse without consideration."

"You lie!"

Slotman shifted uneasily. "I cannot force your belief."

"You're right, you can't. Well, go on—what more?"

"She came into this money; my proposal no longer tempted her. She then refused me, even though I told her that the past—her past—would be forgotten, that I would never refer to it."

"What past?" Hugh shouted.

"Hers and yours," Slotman said boldly. "A supposed marriage that never took place, her sudden disappearance from her school in June, nineteen hundred and eighteen, when that marriage was supposed to have been celebrated—but never was. Her story of leaving England for Australia—an obvious lie, Mr. Alston. All those things I knew. All those things I can prove—against her—and against you—and—and—" Slotman's voice quivered. He leaped to his feet and uttered a shout for help.

The blood-red mist was before Hugh's eyes, and out of that mist appeared a vision of a face, an unpleasant face, with starting eyes and gaping mouth.

This he saw, and then his vision cleared, and with a shudder he released his hold on the man's throat, and Philip Slotman subsided limply into his chair.



CHAPTER XXVII

THE WATCHER

Helen Everard's pleasant face was beaming. Her smile expressed complete contentment and satisfaction, for everything was going as everything should go. Johnny was an accepted lover, Joan's future would be protected; she herself would be left free to make her long journey to the dear ones at the other side of the world. All was well!

Joan had been to London yesterday, had rushed off with scarcely a word, and had returned at night, tired and seemingly dispirited.

Joan, quiet and calm, smiled at Helen and kissed her good morning, but spoke hardly at all.

"You had a tiring day in Town yesterday, dear?"

"Very!"

"Shopping?"

"No!"

Helen asked no more questions. She thought of Hugh Alston. Could it be anything to do with him? She could never quite understand the position of Hugh Alston. Of course the talk about a marriage having taken place years ago between Hugh Alston and Joan was absurd, was ridiculous. Joan was proving the absurdity of it even now by accepting Johnny.

"Connie is coming over this afternoon to see you, Joan," she said. "She sent me a note over yesterday by a boy. Johnny has told her of course, and Connie is delighted beyond words. She sends you her dear love."

"Thank you!" Joan said calmly.

"Of course," Helen hesitated, "the marriage need not be long delayed. You see—" She paused, and then went into explanations about Jessie and the children out in Australia, and her own promise to go to them.

"So this afternoon I want you and Connie to have a long, long talk," Helen said. "There will be so much for you to discuss. Connie is the business man, you know. Poor Johnny is hopeless when it comes to discussing things and—and arrangements. Of course, dear, you quite understand that Johnny is not well off."

"I know, but that does not matter."

"I know, but even though Johnny is one of the finest and straightest men living, it will be better if in some way your own money is so tied up that it belongs to you and to you only. Johnny himself would wish it. He doesn't want to touch one penny of your money!"

"I am sure of that." Joan rose. She went out into the garden. She wanted to get away from Helen's well-meant, friendly, affectionate chatter about the future, and about money and marriage. She went to the bench beside the pool and sat there, staring at the green water.

"It was true," she whispered to herself, "all true, what I said. I—I do despise him. How could I love a thing that I despised; and I do despise him!"

It was not of Johnny Everard she was thinking.

"He said—he said that he had a right, that my love for him gave him the right! How dared he?" A deep flush stole into her cheeks, and then died out.

She rose suddenly with a gesture of impatience.

"It is a lie! It is wrong, and it is nonsense. I am engaged to marry Johnny Everard, and there is no finer, better man living! I shall never see that other man again. Yesterday he and I parted for good and for always, and I am glad—glad!" And she knew even while she uttered the words that she was very miserable.

Connie Everard drove the pony-trap over to Starden. She brought with her a boy who would drive it back again. Later in the afternoon Johnny would drive the car over for her and take her back.

Connie, having attended carefully to her toilet, descended to the waiting pony-trap, and found, to her surprise and a little to her annoyance, that Ellice was already seated in the little vehicle.

"Ellice, dear, I am sorry, but—"

"You don't want to take me, Connie; but, all the same, I am going. I want to see—her!"

"Why?"

"I want to see her," the girl said. A dusky glow of sudden passion came into her face. "I want to see her. There is no harm, is there?" She laughed shrilly. "I shan't hurt her by looking at her. I want to see her again, the woman that he loves." There was a shake in her voice, a suggestion of passionate tears, but the child held herself in check.

"Ellice, darling, it will be better if you—"

"If I don't go. I know, but I am going. You—you can't turn me out, Connie. I am too strong; I shall cling to the sides of the cart."

There was a look, half of laughter, half of defiance, in the girl's eyes.

"Connie, I am going, and nothing shall prevent me!"

Connie sighed, and stepped into the cart and took up the reins. "Very well, dear!" she said resignedly.

"You are angry with me, Connie?"

"Why should you want to go to Starden?"

"I want to see her again. I want to—to understand, to—to know things."

"What do you mean, to understand, to know things?"

"I want to watch her!"

"Ellice, you will make me angry presently. Ellice," Connie added suddenly, "I suppose you don't intend to make a scene, and make yourself foolish and—and cheap?"

"I shall say nothing. I only want to watch and to try and understand."

"I think you are acting foolishly and wrongly, Ellice. I think you are a very foolish child!"

"I wish," Ellice said, and said it without passion, but with a deep certainty in her voice, "I wish that I were dead, Connie."

"You ought to be thoroughly ashamed of yourself," said Connie, who could think of nothing better to say.

She made one more attempt when Starden was reached.

"Ellice, child, why not go back with Hobbins?"

"I am coming with you," Ellice said.

"You—you will not—I mean you will—not be silly or rude to—"

Ellice drew herself up with a childish dignity. "I shall not forget that I am a lady, Connie," she said, and said it with such stateliness and such dignity that Connie felt no inclination to laugh.

Helen frowned. She was annoyed at the sight of Ellice, frankly she did not like the girl. Helen was a good, honest woman who liked everything that was good and honest. Ellice Brand might be good and honest, but there was something about the girl that was beyond Helen's ken. She was so elfin, so gipsy-like, so different from most girls Helen knew, and had known.

During the long afternoon, when they sat for a time in the garden, or in the shady drawing-room, Joan was aware of the fixed and intent gaze of a pair of dark eyes. Strangely and wonderfully dark were those eyes, and they seemed to possess some magnetic power, a power of making themselves felt. More than once in the middle of saying something to Helen or to Connie, Joan found herself at a loss for words, and impelled by some unknown force to turn her head and look straight into those eyes that blazed in the little white face.

Why did the girl stare at her so? Why, Joan wondered? A strange, elfin-like child, a bud on the point of bursting into a wondrous beauty, Joan realised, and realised too that there was enmity in the dark eyes that stared at her so mercilessly.

"Ellice, child, go out into the garden," Helen said presently. "Come with me, we will leave Connie and Joan to have a little talk. Come, there are lots of things to see. This is a wonderful garden, you know—far, far better than Buddesby."

"It isn't," Ellice said quietly. "There's no garden in the world like Buddesby garden, and no place in the world like Buddesby, but I will come with you if you want me to."

"A strange girl!" Joan said.

"A very dear, good, lovable, but passionate child," Connie said. "Now let us talk of you and Johnny, Joan, of the future. Helen has told you that—that she—"

"She wishes to leave us soon? Yes."

"And so," Connie slipped her hand into Joan's, "the marriage need not be long delayed."

"Whenever—he wishes it," Joan said, and for her life she could not put any warmth into her voice, and Connie, who noticed most things, noticed the chill coldness of it.

"And yet she must love Johnny, or she would not marry him," Connie thought.

"I leave everything to you, and to Helen and to him."

It seemed almost as if Joan had a strange disinclination to utter Johnny's name. Johnny sounded so babyish, so childlike, so affectionate, yet she felt that she could not speak of him as "John." It would sound hard and crude in the ears of those who loved him, and called him by the more tender name.

It was another shock to Connie later when Johnny came. She watched for the greeting between these two, and felt shocked and startled when Johnny took Joan's hand and held it for a moment, then lifted it to his lips. No other kiss passed between them.

And Connie felt her own cheeks burning, and wondered why.

How strange! Lovers, and particularly accepted lovers, always kissed!

There was that about Johnny that for the first time in her life almost irritated Connie. She watched him, and saw that his eyes were following Joan with that look of strange, dog-like devotion that Connie remembered with a start she had herself surprised in Ellice's eyes before now.

And as she watched, so watched another, herself almost forgotten as she sat in a corner of the room. The big black eyes were on these two, drifting from the face of one to the face of the other, taking no heed, and no count of anything else but of these two affianced lovers.

Very clearly and almost coldly Joan had expressed her own wishes.

"If you wish the marriage to take place soon, I am content. I would like it to—to be—not very soon—not just yet," she added, and seemed to be speaking against her own will, and as though in opposition to her own thoughts. "Still, whatever you arrange, I will willingly agree to. I prefer to leave it all to you, Helen, and you, Connie, and—and you, Johnny. But it might take place just before Helen goes away. That would be time enough, would it not?"

"It was the very thing I was going to suggest," Helen said. "In three months' time then, Joan."

Joan bowed her head. "In three months' time then," she said.

They were all three very silent as Johnny drove the little car back to Buddesby that evening. The sun was down, but the twilight lingered. Ellice sat crushed in between Johnny's big bulk and Connie, and she would not have changed places with the queen on her throne.

"There's Rundle with that horrible lurcher dog of his," said Johnny, and spoke more to make conversation than anything else.

They could see the man, the village poacher, slouching along under a hedge with the ever-faithful dog close at heel.

"A horrible, fierce-looking beast," said Connie. "It fights with every dog in the place, and—"

"But it loves him; it loves its master," Ellice said passionately. "It would die for its master, wouldn't it?"

"Why, I daresay it would, Gipsy," Johnny said. "But why so excited about it, little girl?"

"If you—if you," Ellice said, "had the offer of two dogs, the one splendid, a thoroughbred deerhound, graceful, beautiful, fine to look at, but cold and with no love to give its master, and the other—a hideous beast like Rundle's lurcher—but a beast who could love and die for its master, and dying lick the hand of the master it loved, glad and grateful to—to die for him—which would you have, which would you have, Johnny?"

Johnny was hardly listening. He was looking down the dusky road and seeing in imagination a face, the most beautiful, wonderful face that his world had ever held.

"I don't know, Gipsy girl," he said. "I don't know!"

"No!" Ellice said; and her voice shook and quavered in an unnatural laugh. "You don't know, Johnny; you don't know!"

And Connie, who heard and understood, shivered a little at the sound of the girl's laughter.



CHAPTER XXVIII

"HE DOES NOT LOVE ME NOW"

"Tom," said Lady Linden, "is by no means a fool, Marjorie."

"No, aunt."

"He has ideas. I don't say that they are brilliant, but he gets the germ of a plan into his brain. And now I will tell you what he suggests about Partridge's cottage and land when the lease falls in."

Lady Linden proceeded to explain Tom Arundel's idea, and Marjorie sat and stared out into the garden and thought of Hugh.

Was he at Hurst Dormer now? If not, where was he? What was he doing? What was he thinking about? Did he still love her, or had he fallen in love with Joan? And, if he had, would he marry Joan? and if not.

"So there you see, and what do you think of that?" asked Lady Linden, coming to the end of her remarks.

"I think it would be very nice!"

"Very nice!" Lady Linden snorted. "Very nice! What a feeble remark. My good Marjorie, do you take no intelligent interest in anything? Upon my word, now I come to look back I wonder at myself, I do indeed. I wonder at myself to think that a man like Hugh Alston, an intellectual, deep-thinking man, a man with common-sense and plenty of it—what was I saying? Oh yes, I wonder at myself for ever hoping or believing that a man like Hugh could fall in love with a silly little donkey like you. And yet men do, even clever men—I've known several quite clever men fall in love with perfect fools of women. But I was wrong, and you are right. I see it now. Tom Arundel is the man for you; you are fitted for one another. He is not quite a fool, but you are. He's not clever enough to be annoyed by your folly. Hugh, on the other hand, would positively dislike you after a month. There! don't howl, for goodness' sake—don't snivel, child! Run away and play with your doll"

"Patience!" said Lady Linden, when her niece went out—"I have the patience of ten Jobs rolled into one. She's a good little soul, but an awful idiot! And bless my wig!" added her ladyship, who did not wear one, but her own luxuriant hair, "what's that hopeless idiot of a Perkins doing with those standard roses?" She sallied out, battle in her eyes, to tell Perkins, the under-gardener, something about the culture of roses, and incidentally to point out what her opinion of himself was in plain and straightforward language.

Meanwhile, Marjorie had hurried out. It was not true! She was not so stupid and so silly that Hugh could never have fallen in love with her. Why, he had fallen in love with her! He had wanted her for his wife, and she—she in her blindness and her folly, in her stupidity, which her aunt had but now been flinging in her teeth, had not realised that he was the one man in her world, the only man, and that she loved him as never, never could she love Tom Arundel or anyone else.

The little ancient disreputable car had been repaired by Rodding, the village handyman, who by some conjuring trick had made it run again. Marjorie started it.

She had made up her mind. She would go to Hurst Dormer, she would see Hugh and—and quite what she would do she did not know. Everything was on the knees of the gods, only she knew that she was very unhappy, a very miserable, unhappy, foolish girl, who had got what she had asked for, and found that she did not want it now she had it.

Piff, piff, paff, paff went the car, and Marjorie rolled off with a succession of jerks, leaving behind an odoriferous cloud of smoke and exhaust gases that lay like a blue mist along the drive, and presently made Lady Linden cough and speak in uncomplimentary terms of motoring and motorists generally.

On to Hurst Dormer Marjorie plugged, sad at heart, realising her folly.

"It is my fault," she felt miserably; "it is all my fault, and I am not fair to Tom. He doesn't understand me. I see him look at me sometimes, and I don't wonder at it. He doesn't understand me a bit; he has every right to—to think—I love him, and I don't—I don't. I love Hugh!"

It was an hour later that Marjorie put in an appearance at Hurst Dormer.

Hugh was there, and Hugh was in. It brought relief. She wanted to cry with the relief she felt.

Over the tea-table, where she poured out the tea from the old silver Anne teapot, she looked at him, and saw many changes that one not loving him, as she knew she did now, might have missed. The cheery frank smile was there yet, but it had lost much of its happiness. His eyes were no less kind, but they had a tired look about them, a wistful look. Oh, that she might cheat herself into believing that their wistfulness was for her! But Marjorie was not the little fool her aunt called her. She was a woman, and was gifted with a woman's understanding.

"He does not love me now, not as he did. I had my chance, and I said no, and now—now it is gone for ever."

And he, leaning back in his chair, watched her pouring out the tea as he had a few days ago watched another pouring out tea in a London hotel. The sight of Joan performing that domestic duty had brought to him then a vision of this same old room, this very old teapot, that his mother had used. And now, seeing Marjorie here, pouring out the tea, the only vision, the only remembrance that it brought to him was the memory of another girl pouring out tea in a London hotel.

"Hugh, have you seen her—Joan?"

He started—started at the sound of the name that was forever in his thoughts.

"Yes, dear," he said simply, for why should he lie to this child?

"Oh!" she said. "Oh, and—and Hugh, she and you—" She paused, she held her face down that he might not see it.

"Joan Meredyth," he said slowly, "and I met in Town a few days ago. She told me then, that she is engaged to be married."

"Oh!" Marjorie said, and her heart leaped with a new-born hope.

"And I," Hugh went on, "am worried and anxious about her."

"Hugh!"

"I can't worry you, little girl. It is nothing in which you could help; it is my fault, my folly!"

"Mine!" she said.

"No, it is mine. The whole idea was mine; I shoulder the blame of it all. It has succeeded in what we attempted. You are all right, you and Tom. I've made a lovely mess of everything else. But that does not matter so much. What we wanted, we won, eh?" He smiled at her, little dreaming that she had only won dead-sea fruit.

"Why are you worried and anxious about Joan?"

"I am not going to tell you, dear. I can't very well. Besides, you couldn't help. You are happy, you are all right. Tom is in high favour with her ladyship, so that's good, and you—you and Tom are happy, eh?"

"Yes," she said miserably.

"He's a good fellow, Marjorie. Make allowances for him. He'll need 'em, he's no angel; but he means well, and he's a good clean, honest man, is Tom Arundel, and you'll be a happy girl when you are his wife; please God!" he added, and put his hand on her shoulder, and did not notice that she was weeping silently.

He drove her back to Cornbridge in the moonlight, and left her at the gates of the Manor House. "Little girl," he said, "in this life there's a good deal of give and take. Don't expect too much, and don't be hurt if you don't get everything that you ask for. Remember this—I—I cared for you very much." "Cared!" she thought. "Cared?" He spoke in the past—Cared!"

"But I gave you up because you loved another man; you loved a man more worthy than I am. I wouldn't have stood aside if I had felt that the other man was not good enough, that he was a waster and would not make you happy; but I knew Tom better than that. Stick to him, don't ask for too much. Believe always that he loves you, and that he is built of the stuff that keeps straight and true, and so, God bless you, dear!"

He kissed her frankly as a brother might, and sat there watching her up the drive to the house. He did not guess that when she gained the house she slipped in by a garden door and ran up to her own room to indulge in that relief that a woman may ever find when the grief is not too black and too bitter, the relief of tears.

"I am worried about her," Hugh thought to himself; but "her" to him meant Joan, not Marjorie.

When he said, "I am worried about her," he meant that he was worried about Joan. If he said, "She would have liked this," "She" would mean Joan.

"I am worried about her and that blackguard Slotman," he thought. "There is something about that man—snake—toad—something uncanny. She's there; she has money and he's out for money. If I can sit here and tell myself that I have scared Slotman from offending and annoying her again, I am an idiot. When there's money to be gained, a man like Slotman will want a lot of scaring off it."

A week had passed since Marjorie's visit.

Hugh sent for his housekeeper, Mrs. Morrisey.

"Mrs. Morrisey, I am going to London."

"Oh, Mr. Alston, when the men are—"

"The men are all right. I have to go to London on business."

"Very queer and restless he's been," Mrs. Morrisey thought. "I never known him like it before. When I thought he was in love with that pretty little Miss Linden and wanting to marry her, he was not a bit like he is now. He kept cheerful and smiling, and now; forever on the move. No sooner does he get here than back to London he wants to go."

"Shall you be away for long, sir?"

"I don't know," said Hugh. "Perhaps; perhaps not, I can't say."

"I see. Very good, sir. I'll see to things, of course. And about letters, perhaps you won't want them forwarded as you didn't last time, and—"

"I shall want every letter forwarded, the very hour it arrives," said Hugh quickly.

"Very good, sir. Where shall I send them to?"

"I don't know yet. I'll wire you an address."

Yes, he must go to London. He could not go and watch Joan at Starden, but he could go to London and watch Mr. Philip Slotman.

"What I'll do is this—I'll have a watch kept on that man. There are private detective chaps who'll do it for me. If he goes down to Starden, I'll be after him hot-foot. And if he does go there to annoy and insult Joan—I'll break his neck!" he added, with cheerful decision.

"And she—she is going to marry another man, a man she doesn't love—she can't love. I know she cannot love." He added aloud: "Joan, you don't love him, my darling, you know you don't. You dared not stay and face me that day. Your words meant nothing. You may think you despise me, but you don't: you want to, my dear, but you can't; and you can't because, thank God, you love me! Oh, fool! Cheer yourself up, slap yourself on the back. It doesn't help you. She may love you as you boast, but she'll never marry you. She wants to hate you, and she'll keep on wanting to hate, and I believe—Heaven help me—that her will is stronger than her heart. But—but anyhow, that brute Slotman shan't worry her while I can crawl about."

He was driven to the station the following morning. And now he was in the train for London.

"I'll find out a firm of detectives and put 'em on Slotman," he thought, "but first I'll go and have a look round. What's the name of the place?—Gracebury."

At the entrance to Gracebury, which as everyone knows is a cul-de-sac of no considerable extent, Hugh stopped his taxi and got out. He walked down the wide pavement till he came to the familiar door.

"I'll see him," he thought. "I'll go in and have a few words with him, just to remind him that his neck is in jeopardy."

He went up the stone steps and paused.

The door of Mr. Philip Slotman's office was closed. On the door was pasted a paper, stating that a suite of three offices was to let.



CHAPTER XXIX

"WHY DOES SHE TAKE HIM FROM ME?"

"Why—why—why?" Ellice asked herself. Why should this woman who did not love him wish to take him away from her, who worshipped the ground he trod on, who looked up to him as the best, the finest of all God's created creatures?

That Joan Meredyth did not love John Everard no one understood more clearly than Ellice Brand. She had watched them when they were together, she had watched the girl apart; and the watcher's body might be that of a child, but her eyes were the eyes of a woman, as was her heart too.

"Why should she take him from me?" she asked herself, and all her being rose in passionate revolt and resentment.

"Perhaps she does not know that I love him. Perhaps she looks on me only as a child—a silly, foolish, infatuated child. But I am not! I am not!" Ellice cried. "I am not! I love him. I loved him when I was a baby, when I came here eight years ago, and now I am eighteen and a woman, and I have never changed and never shall!"

During the days that followed the announcement of Joan Meredyth's engagement to John Everard, Connie watched the girl. She felt troubled, anxious, and yet scarcely could say why. She knew the girl's passionate nature. Connie almost dreaded something reckless even tragic. She was more worried than she could say and of course she could not consult Johnny. There was no one to consult but Helen, and Helen did not understand Ellice in the least. Helen was inclined to look down on Ellice from her superior height as a wayward, wilful, foolish child—nothing more.

"Send her away. I suppose she is really too old to go to school now, Connie. How old is she, sixteen?"

"Eighteen."

"She has the heart and the body of a child."

"And the soul of a woman!"

"Sometimes, Connie dear," said Helen sweetly, "you make me almost angry. You actually seem to be siding with this foolish little thing!"

Connie sighed. "In—in some ways I do. She loves him so, and I know it. I can't be hard-hearted, I can't blind myself to the truth. Of course, I know that Johnny's marriage with Joan is the best thing in the world for both of them, but—"

"But just because a stupid, self-willed girl of eighteen believes herself deeply in love with Johnny—Oh, Connie, do be your own reasonable self."

Johnny Everard, blind as most men are, did not notice how quiet and reserved Ellice had grown of late, how seldom she spoke to him, how when he spoke to her she only answered him in brief monosyllables, and how never came a smile now to her red lips, and certainly never a smile into her great dark eyes.

He did not see what Connie saw—the heaviness about those eyes, the suggestion of tears during the night, when she came down silently to her breakfast. She had changed, and yet he did not see it, and if he had seen it might never guess at the cause.

And Connie too, always kindly and gentle, always sweet and unselfish; during these days the girl's unselfishness was something to wonder at.

She had always loved Ellice; she had understood the child as none other had. And now there seemed to be a bond between them that drew them closer.

Three years ago Johnny had bought a bicycle for Ellice. She had been going daily then to Miss Richmond's school at Great Langbourne, three miles away, and he had bought the bicycle that she might ride to school and back again. Since she had left school the bicycle had remained untouched and rusted in one of the outhouses, but now Ellice had got the machine out and cleaned it and put new tyres on it.

Deep down in her mind was a plan, as yet not wholly formed, a desperate venture that one day she might embark on, and the old bicycle was part of that plan, for she would need it to carry out the plan. She had not decided yet, not even if she would ever carry it out, but she might.

Day after day saw her on the road; more often than not her way lay towards Starden village. She would ride the six and a half miles to Starden, wait there for a time, and then ride back. She never called at Starden Hall. Helen knew nothing of these trips.

Connie watched the girl with misgivings and doubts, and Ellice knew that the elder girl was watching her.

"Connie, I want to speak to you," she said quietly one morning.

"Yes, darling?"

Ellice slipped her small brown hand into Connie's.

"I—I know that you are worrying, dear, that you are anxious—and for me."

Connie nodded, tears came into her eyes.

"I want you to understand, Connie, that I—I promise you I will do nothing—nothing, I will never do anything unless I come to you first and tell you. I promise you that I will do nothing—nothing that I should not do, nothing mad and foolish and wrong, unless I come to you first and tell you just what I am going to do."

"Thank you, dear, for telling me this. It lifts a great weight and a great anxiety from my heart. Thank you, dear—oh, Ellice darling, I thought once that it would be a fine thing for him, but now—now I could wish it otherwise!"

Another moment and the girl was in her arms, clasping her passionately, and kissing her passionately and gratefully.

Then suddenly Ellice broke away, and a few minutes later was riding hard down the road to Starden.

It was always to Starden that she rode. Always she passed the great gates of Starden Hall, yet never even glanced at them. She rode into the little village, propped her bicycle against the railings that surrounded the old stocks that stood on the village green, and there sat on a seat and watched the ducks in the green village pond and the children playing cricket. Then, after waiting perhaps an hour, she would mount and ride slowly back to Buddesby again.

It was the programme that she carried out this morning. It was twelve o'clock when she came in sight of Buddesby village, a mile distant as yet.

"Missy! Missy!" Someone was calling. Ellice slowed down and looked about her. On the bank beside the road a man sat, and he was nursing an ugly yellow lurcher dog in his arms.

"Missy!" the man called, and his voice was broken and harsh with suffering.

It was Rundle, the poacher, and his dog, and there was blood on Rundle's hand, blood trickling down from a wound in the dog's side. The man was holding the dog as he might have held a child. The big ugly yellow head was against the man's breast, and in its agony the dog was licking the man's rough hand.

And watching, there came back to Ellice's memory what she had said of this man and his dog.

"You'll do something for me, missy, something as I—I can't do myself!" He shuddered. "Will you ride on to Taylor's and ask him to come here and bring—his gun?"

"Why?"

"I—I can't do it myself!"

"He might be cured."

"There's only Mister Vinston, the Vet, and he wouldn't look at this poor tyke of mine. He hates him too bad for that, because Snatcher killed one of them fancy poodle dogs of his two years ago; and Mr. Vinston ain't never forgot it—and never will. He wouldn't do nothing to save Snatcher, miss. Ask Taylor to come and bring his gun."

Ellice nodded. She stretched out her hand and touched the shaggy yellow head, and in her eyes was infinite pity. Then she mounted the bicycle, and rode like the wind to Buddesby. What she said to Mr. Ralph Vinston, the smart young veterinary surgeon, only she and Mr. Ralph Vinston knew.

He had refused definitely and decidedly. "It'll be a blessing to the place if the beast dies," he said. "You'd better take his message to Taylor. The gun's the best remedy for Rundle's accursed dog, Miss Ellice."

And then the girl had talked to him, had talked with flashing eyes and heaving breast, and the end of it was that Ralph Vinston made a collection of surgical instruments, bandages, and other necessaries, bundled them into his little car, and was away down the road with Ellice in company within ten minutes.



CHAPTER XXX

"WAITING"

Hugh Alston had certainly not attempted anything in the way of picturesque disguise. There was nothing brigandish or romantic about the appearance of the very ordinary-looking young man who put in an appearance at Starden village.

Quite what his plans were, what he proposed doing and how he should do it, Hugh had not the slightest idea. He mistrusted Slotman. He experienced exactly the same feelings as would a man who, hearing that there was a savage wild beast let loose where an immense amount of harm may be done, puts a gun under his arm and sallies forth.

Even if Joan had not the immense claim on him that she had, he believed he would do exactly what he was doing now. He might be wrong about Slotman, of course. The man might have cleared out and left the country, but Hugh fancied that he had not. Here was a little gold-mine, a young girl, rich and unprotected, a girl of whom this villain believed certain things, which if true would give him a great power over her. That they were not true, Slotman did not know, and he would use his fancied knowledge to obtain his ends and to make Joan's life unbearable.

So Hugh Alston was here in rough, shaggy tweeds, sitting on the self-same seat beside the old stocks where most mornings Ellice Brand came.

"I'm here," he said to himself, and pulled hard on his pipe. "I am here, and here I am going to stay. Sooner or later, unless I am dead out in my reckonings, that brute will turn up, and when he does he'll find me here ahead of and waiting for him."

"The Meredyths," said Mrs. Bonner, "hev lived at Starden"—she called it 'Sta-a-arden'—"oh, I wouldn't like to say for how long, centuries anyhow. Then for a time things got despirit with them, and the place was sold. Bought it was by Mr. Gorridge, a London gentleman. Thirty years he lived here. I remember him buying it; I would be about eighteen then, just before I married Bonner. Master Roger I think it was, anyhow one of 'em—the Meredyths I mean—went to Australia and kep' sheep or something there, and made money, and he bought the old place back, Mr. Gorridge being dead and gone. You'll see 'is tomb in the church, Mr. Alston."

"Thank you," Hugh said. "I'll be sure to look for it."

"A wonderful expensive tomb, and much admired," said Mrs. Bonner.

"I am sure it must be in the best taste. And then?"

"Oh, then Mr. Roger died at sea and left it all, Starden Hall and his money, to Miss Joan Meredyth. And she lives there now, and I suppose she'll go on living there when she is married."

"When she is married," he repeated.

"To Mr. John Everard of Buddesby, a rare pleasant-spoken, nice gentleman as no one can speak a word against. Passes here most days in his car, he does—always running over from Buddesby, as is but natcheral."

Starden Hall gates stood about a quarter of a mile out of Starden village, and midway between the village and the Hall gates was Mrs. Bonner's clean, typically Kentish little cottage.

Artists were Mrs. Bonner's usual customers. The cottage was old, half-timbered and hipped-roofed. The roof was clad with Sussex stone, lichen-covered, and a feast of colour from grey and vivid yellow to the most tender green. Mrs. Bonner herself was a comfortable body, built on ample and generous lines, a born house manager, a born cook, and of a cleanliness that she herself described as "scrutinous."

So Hugh, casting about for a retreat, had happened on Mrs. Bonner's cottage and had installed himself here—for how long he knew not, for what purpose he scarcely even guessed at. Yet here he was.

Mrs. Bonner had seen Philip Slotman, as she saw most things and people that at one time or another passed within range of her windows.

She recognised him from Hugh's description.

"It would be about best part of a fortnight ago," she said. "He had shammy leather gloves on, and was in Hickman's cab. Hickman waited for him at the hall gates and then took him back."

"And he's not been here since?"

"I fancy, but I ain't sure, that I did see him one day in a car," said Mrs. Bonner; "but I couldn't swear to it."

Twice he had seen "Her" from the window of Mrs. Bonner's little cottage, once a mere glimpse as she had flashed by in a car; the other time she had been afoot, walking and alone. He had gazed on the slim grace of her figure, himself hidden behind Mrs. Bonner's spotless white lace curtains. He had watched her, his soul in his eyes, the woman he loved and who was not for him, could never be for him now, and there fell upon him a sense of desolation, of loneliness, of utter hopelessness.

Three days had passed since his coming to Starden. He had seen Joan twice, he had seen the man she was to marry. Once he had caught a glimpse of John Everard hurrying to Starden Hall in his little car, he himself had been standing by Mrs. Bonner's gate. Everard had turned his head and glanced at him, with that curiosity about strangers that all dwellers in rustic places feel.

"An artist, I suppose," Johnny thought as he drove on.

Hugh watched him down the road; he had seen Everard's glance at him, and had summed him up. The man was just what he would have imagined, a man of his own stamp, no Adonis—just an ordinary, healthy, clean-living Englishman.

"I rather like the look of him," thought Hugh. "He seems all right." And then he smiled at his thoughts a trifle bitterly. "By every right on earth I ought to hate him."

Johnny drove his small car to the doors of the Hall.

"Joan," he said, "come out. Come out for a spin—the car's running finely to-day. Come out, and we'll go and have lunch at Langbourne or somewhere. What do you say?" His face was eager. "You know," he added, "you have never been out with me in my car yet."

"If you would like me to."

"Go and get ready then, and I'll tell Helen," he said. "We shan't be back to lunch."

Hugh had been on his way to the village when he saw Everard in his little car. He went to the village because, if he went in the opposite direction, it would take him to the Hall gates, and he did not wish to go there. He did not wish her to see him, to form the idea that he was here loitering about for the purpose of seeing her.

Sooner or later he knew she must be made aware of his presence, then he hoped for an opportunity to explain, but he would not seek it yet. So he made his way to the village, stopped to give pennies to small white-haired children, patted the shaggy dusty heads of vagrant dogs, and finally came to anchor on the seat beside the railed-in stocks.

And there on that same seat sat a small, dark-eyed maiden, whose rusty bicycle reclined against the railings. She had been here yesterday for fifteen minutes or so. He and she had occupied the seat without the exchange of a word, according to English custom.

Hugh looked at her. Because he regarded one woman as the embodiment of all that was perfect and graceful and beautiful, it did not blind him to beauty in others. He saw in this girl what those blinder than he had not yet recognised—the dawning of a wonderful, a radiant and glowing beauty. And because he had a very sincere and honest appreciation of the beautiful, she interested him, and he smiled. He lifted his hat.

The girl stared at him; she started a little as he raised his hat. She gave the slightest inclination of her head. It was not encouraging.

Hugh sat down. He was thinking of the man he had seen a while ago—a clean, honest, open-faced man, a man he felt he could like, and yet by every reason ought to hate.

The girl was studying his profile.

She had the suspicion that is inherent in all shy wild things, and yet, looking at him, she felt that this man was no dangerous animal to be feared and avoided.

Turning suddenly, he caught her glance and smiled.

"You live here?"

"No!"

"Yet you—oh, I see, you are staying here—"

"No, I live at Little Langbourne."

He smiled, having no idea where Little Langbourne might be.

They talked—of nothing, of the ducks and geese on the green, of the weather, of the sunshine, of the ancient stocks.

"You are staying here?" she asked.

"Yes, at Mrs. Bonner's."

"Oh, then you are an artist?"

"Nothing so ornamental, I am afraid. No—quite a useless person."

"If you are not an artist, and have no friends here, do you not find it a little dull?"

"Yes, but I am a patient animal. I am waiting, you see."

"Waiting—for what?"

Hugh smiled. "For something that may happen, and yet may not. I am waiting in case it does. Of course you don't understand, little girl, I—I mean—I am sorry," he apologised. "I was forgetting, thinking of a friend, another girl I know."

"I am not offended. Why should I be? I am a girl and—and not very big, am I?" She rose and smiled at him, and held out her hand.

"Thank you," Hugh said. He took her hand and held it. "I think you are generous."

"For not being offended by a silly thing like that!" She laughed and turned to get the bicycle. But it had slipped, the handle-bar had become wedged in the railings; it took all Hugh's strength to persuade the handle-bar to come out.

"I am afraid you can't ride it like this, the bar's got twisted. If you have a spanner—"

"I haven't," said Ellice.

"Then if you will permit I will wheel it into the village. There's a cycle shop there, and I'll fix it up for you."

So, he wheeling the bicycle, and she beside him, they crossed the green and came to the village street. And down the road came a little grey-painted car, which Johnny Everard was driving with more pride than he had ever experienced before.

"Why, hello!" thought Johnny. "What on earth is Ellice doing here, and who is the fellow she is with? He's the man I saw at Mrs. Bonner's gate and—"

He turned his head and glanced at Joan. He was going to say something to her, something about the unexpectedness of seeing Ellice here, but Johnny Everard said nothing. He was startled, for Joan's face was white, and her lips were compressed. And in Joan's brain was dinning the question. "He here—what does he do here? Has he come here to torment me further, to pester and plague and annoy me with his speeches that I will never listen to? How dare he come here?"

He had seen her, had paused. He lifted his hand to his hat and raised it, but Joan stared straight before her.

It was the cut direct, and there came a dusky red into Hugh's face as he realised the fact.



CHAPTER XXXI

"IF YOU NEED ME"

Naturally enough, Johnny Everard, seeing Ellice, would have stopped. He had his foot on the clutch and was feeling for the brake when Joan realised his intention.

"Please drive on! Please drive straight on!"

And Johnny, receiving his instructions, obeyed them without hesitation. Another moment, and Joan regretted. But it was too late, the car had gone on; the two figures, the man and the girl with the bicycle, were left behind. It was too late—and the girl felt almost shocked by what she had done.

But Joan's temper was on edge, the day had lost any beauty that it might have held for her. She wanted to get back, she wanted to be alone, she wanted to decide, to think things out for herself.

Johnny looked at her. This was beyond his understanding. What had happened? Was it the man who had caused Joan to look so white and angry, or was it Ellice?

It could hardly be the man after all, for she had evidently not known him. She had not recognised him in any way.

Johnny was not good at guess-work. Here was something beyond him. If it were Ellice, then why should the sight of Ellice upset Joan? And why—it came to him suddenly—had Joan cut Ellice?

For in cutting the man Joan had also cut the girl, and had not thought, the girl meaning little or nothing to her.

"Johnny, I—I—don't think me unkind—or ungracious—but—I would like to go back soon. I don't mean—" She paused. "Let's go back by way of Bennerden."

It meant that she did not want to go back by the same road with the chance of seeing those two again.

Ellice's cheeks were burning, and her eyes were bright with anger. Joan Meredyth had cut her, and it seemed to her that Johnny had aided and abetted.

Then she happened to glance at Hugh Alston, and intuition prompted her.

"I think you know her," she said quickly.

"Yes, I—I know her."

"And she was not pleased to see you?"

"Apparently not!" he laughed, but the laughter was shaky. "Here we are! We'll soon get the bicycle fixed up."

Ellice stood watching him while with a borrowed spanner he adjusted the handle-bars.

What did this man know of Joan, and why had Joan cut him dead? Perhaps they were old lovers, perhaps a thousand things? Ellice shrugged her shoulders. It was nothing to her. If she must fight this woman, this rich, beautiful woman for her love's sake, she would not fight with underhand weapons. There would be no digging in pasts, for Ellice.

"Thank you," she said. "You have been very kind!" Again she held out her hand to him, and gave him a frank and friendly smile. "I hope that we shall meet again."

"I think," he said, "that we shall often meet again."

He stood and watched the graceful little figure of her as she sped swiftly down the road, then turned and walked slowly back towards Mrs. Bonner's cottage.

So Joan had seen him, and had cut him dead.

"If I was not so dead sure, so dead certain sure that Slotman will turn up eventually, I would clear out," Hugh thought to himself. "I'd go back to Hurst Dormer and stick there, whether I wanted to or not."

Ellice, pedalling homeward, went more slowly now she was clear of the village. She wanted to think it all over in her mind, and arrived at conclusions. At first she had thought that Joan Meredyth and Johnny too had deliberately cut her dead. But that was folly; they had cut her, but then in this matter she had not counted. She was gifted with plenty of common-sense. Connie's teaching and precept had not gone for nothing with the girl.

"Joan Meredyth knows that man, and he knows her."

Half a mile out of Little Langbourne, Ellice put on the brake and alighted.

"How is Snatcher?" she asked.

Rundle touched his hat. A big and fearsome-looking man was Rundle. Village mothers frightened small children into good behaviour by threatening them that Rundle would come and take them away—a name to conjure with. Little Langbourne only knew peace and felt secure when Rundle was undergoing one of his temporary retirements from activity, when, as a guest of the State, he cursed his luck and the gamekeepers who had been one too many for him.

But there was nothing fearsome about the Rundle who faced little Ellice Brand. There was a smile on the man's lips, in his eyes a look of intense gratitude.

Ragged and disreputable person that he was, he would have lain down and allowed this little lady to wipe her feet on him, did she wish it.

"How is Snatcher?"

"Fine, missy!" he said. "Fine—fine!" His eyes glistened. "Snatcher's going to pull through, missy. 'Twas a car did hit he," he added, "and I saw the chap who was in it. I saw him, and I saw him laugh when Snatcher went rolling over in the dust. I'll watch out for that man, missy."

"Tell me about Snatcher!"

"Leg broke, and a terrible cut from a great flint; but he'll pull through—thanks to you!"

"To Mr. Vinston, you mean!"

Rundle shook his head. "To you. He wouldn't 'a come for me, nor Snatcher; he hates my poor tyke. But he's put Snatcher right for all that, and because you made him do it, and I don't wonder!" Rundle looked at her. "I don't wonder," he added. "There's be few men who wouldn't do what you'd tell 'em to."

"Now," said Ellice, "you are talking absurdly. Of course I just shamed Mr. Vinston into doing it. I'd like to come and see Snatcher, Rundle."

"The queen wouldn't be as welcome," he said simply.

Helen expressed no surprise at the unseasonable return of Joan and Johnny from their trip. There was no accounting for Joan's moods; the main and the great thing was, it was due to no quarrel between them.

Johnny stayed to lunch. After it, Joan left him with Helen and went to her own room. She wanted to be alone, she wanted to think things out, to decide how to act, if she were to act at all.

"He called me ungenerous—three times," she said, "ungenerous and—and now I know that I am, I deserve it." She felt as a child feels when it has done wrong and longs to beg for forgiveness. In spite of her pride, her coldness and her haughtiness, there was much of the child still in Joan Meredyth's composition—of the child's honesty and the child's frankness and innocence and desire to avoid hurting others.

"It was cruel—it was cowardly. But why is he here? What right has he to come here when I—I told him—when he knows—that I, that Johnny and I—"

And now, with her mind wavering this way and that way, anxious to excuse herself and blame him one moment, condemning herself the next, Joan took pen and paper and wrote hurriedly.

"I am sorry for what I did. It was inexcusable, and it was ungenerous. I ask you to forgive me, it was so unexpected. Perhaps I have hurt myself by doing it more than I hurt you. If I did hurt you, I ask your forgiveness, and I ask you also, most earnestly, to go, to leave Starden."

She would have written more, much more, words were tumbling over in her brain. She had so much more to say to him, and yet she said nothing. She signed her name and addressed the letter to Hugh Alston at Mrs. Bonner's cottage. She took it out and gave it to a gardener's boy.

"Take that letter and give it the gentleman it is addressed to, if he is there. If he is not there, bring it back to me."

"Yes, miss." The boy pocketed the letter and a shilling, and went whistling down the road.

So she had written, she had confessed her fault and asked for forgiveness—that was like Joan. One moment the haughty cold, proud woman, the next the child, admitting her faults and asking for pardon.

The letter had been duly delivered at Mrs. Bonner's cottage, and, coming in later, Hugh found it.

"Bettses' Bob brought it," said Mrs. Bonner. "From Miss Meredyth at the Hall," she added, and looked curiously at Hugh.

"That's all right, thanks!"

Mrs. Bonner quivered with curiosity. Who was this lodger of hers who received letters from Miss Meredyth, when he had not even admitted that he knew her?

"Very funny!" thought Mrs. Bonner.

Hugh read the letter. "I am sorry—for what I did.... I ask you to forgive me.... Perhaps I have hurt myself more than I have hurt you ..."

"Any answer to go back to the Hall?"

"None!"

"Ah!" Mrs. Bonner hesitated. "I didn't know you knew Miss Meredyth."

"I am going out," said Hugh. Avoid Mrs. Bonner while she was in this curious mood, he knew he must.

"If there's one thing I can't abide, it is secretiveness," said Mrs. Bonner, as she watched him up the road towards the village.

Should he answer the letter? Hugh wondered. Or should he just accept it in silence, as an apology for an act of rudeness? He hated that idea. She might think that he did not forgive, that he bore malice and ill-will.

"No, I must answer it," he decided, "but what shall I say?" He knew what he wanted to say, he knew that he wanted to ask her to meet him, and he knew only too well that she would refuse.

"There is no sense," said Hugh deliberately, "no sense whatever in riding for a certain fall." He was staring at a small flaxen-haired, dirty-faced boy as he spoke. The boy grinned at him.

"You have a sense of humour," said Hugh, "and, no doubt, a sweet tooth." He felt in his pocket for the coin that the Starden children had grown to expect from him. The boy took it, yelled and whooped, and sped down the street to the sweetstuff shop.

"But the fact remains," said Hugh to himself, "there is no sense in deliberately riding for a fall. If I asked her to meet me, she would either refuse or ignore the request, so I shall not ask. Yet, all the same, she and I will meet sooner or later, and when we meet, it will be by accident, not by—" He paused. Outside the cycle-shop stood a small two-seater car that had a familiar look to Hugh. As he glanced at the car its owner came out of the shop with a can of petrol in his hand.

He saw Hugh, looked him in the eyes, and nodded in friendly fashion.

"A nice day!" he said.

"Very!"

"I have to thank you for helping my—" Johnny paused; he had almost said sister, but of course Ellice was not his sister—"my little friend yesterday, about the bike I mean."

"That's nothing! Excuse interference on my part, but if you pour that petrol into the radiator, you will probably develop trouble."

Johnny Everard laughed. "I am new to it, and I am always doing odd things like that. Of course, that's for water. Lawson over at Little Langbourne generally sees to things for me."

Hugh nodded. He looked at the man standing but a few feet from him, the man who was to gain that which Hugh coveted and desired most in the world, looked at him and yet felt no dislike, no great enmity, no furious hate.

"It was very good of you to help the kiddie with her bike," said Johnny, as he splashed the petrol into the tank. "If you find yourself at any time over at Little Langbourne, we'd be glad to see you. My name's Everard, my place is Buddesby."

"Thanks! It is very good of you, and I shan't forget!" He nodded, smiled, and walked on, then glanced back. He could see Johnny fumbling with the car, and he smiled.

"That's my hated rival, and he seems a decent sort of chap."

An hour later he was back at Mrs. Bonner's cottage.

"The post's come in since you went, Mr. Alston," said Mrs. Bonner, "and there's a letter for you."

It was a bulky envelope from Hurst Dormer. There was a note from Mrs. Morrisey, to say that everything was going as it should go, and she enclosed all the letters that had come by post.

And the first letter that Hugh opened was one on pink paper, delicately scented. How well he remembered that scent! How it brought back to him a certain pretty little face, and a pair of sweet blue eyes.

"Dear little maid," he said. He read the letter, and stared at it in astonishment and dismay.



CHAPTER XXXII

THE SPY

It seemed to Hugh Alston that he had not read the letter aright; it was so amazing, so disconcerting, that he felt bewildered. What on earth is wrong? he thought, then he took the letter to the better light at the window and read again.

"MY DEAR HUGH,

"I have been over to Hurst Dormer three times in the car, each time hoping and praying that I might find you; but you are never there now, so I am writing, Hugh, hoping that you will get my letter. I know I have no right to." (This, Hugh noticed, had been carefully crossed out.) "I want to see you so much. I want to ask your advice and help. I don't know what to do, and I am so unhappy, so wretched. Forgive me, dear, for troubling you, but if—if only I could see you I am sure you would help me, and tell me what it is right I should do. Ever and ever

"Your loving, "MARJORIE."

"So unhappy, so wretched!" Hugh read, and it was this that had amazed him. Here was a girl engaged to be married to the man she loved, the man she had told him she could not live without, the man of her own choice, of her own heart—he himself smoothed the way for her, had taken away his own undesirable person, had stepped aside, leaving the field to his rival, and now ...

Hugh blinked at the letter. "What on earth should she be unhappy about? She has had a quarrel with Tom perhaps, and she wants me to go and talk to him like a Dutch Uncle. Poor little maid! I daresay it is all about twopence! But it seems very real and tragic to her." Hugh sighed. He ought to stay here. This was his place, watching and keeping guard and ward for Joan, yet Marjorie wanted him.

"I'll go. I can be there and back in a couple of days. I'll go."

He had just time to write and catch the early outward mail from Starden, to-day was Thursday.

"MY DEAR MARJORIE,

"I have had your letter, and it has worried me not a little. I can't bear to think of you as unhappy, little girl. I shall come back to Hurst Dormer, and shall be there to-morrow, Friday, early in the afternoon. Send me a wire to say if you will come, or if you would rather that I came to Cornbridge.

"At any rate, be sure that if you are in any trouble or difficulty, or are worried and anxious, you have done just the right thing in appealing for help to

"Your old friend, "HUGH."

He rang the bell for Mrs. Bonner.

"Mrs. Bonner, I find I am obliged to go away for a time."

"You mean—"

"No," he said, "I don't. I mean that my absence will be temporary. I can't say exactly how long I shall be away, but in the meantime I would like to keep my rooms here."

Mrs. Bonner's face cleared. "Oh yes," she said, "ezackly, I see!"

"I shall run up to Town to-night, and I will write you or wire you when you may expect me back. It may be a week, it may be less; anyhow, I shall come back."